Primal Fear!

2012-03-05T00:42:59Z

166.249.97.150: /* Notes */

{{Comicstory|
|seriesissue=''[[Transformers: Generation 2 (Marvel)|Transformers: Generation 2]]'' #3
|prev=All or Nothing!
|next=Devices and Desires! (Marvel)
|title="Primal Fear!"
|image=MarvelUSG2-03.jpg
|caption=Frenzy wouldn't die for another nine issues.
|publisher=[[Marvel Comics]]
|date=November 1993
|coverdate=January 1994
|writer=[[Simon Furman]]
|artist=[[Derek Yaniger]] ("Old Evils")
|penciler=[[Manny Galan]] ("Primal Fear")
|inkers=[[Jim Amash]] and [[Marie Severin]] ("Primal Fear")
|colorist=[[Sarra Mossoff]]
|letterers=[[Richard Starkings]] with [[Gaushell]]
|editor=[[Rob Tokar]]
|continuity=[[Marvel Comics continuity]]
}}
'''Prime and the Autobots fight Jhiaxus and his Cybertronians on a planet where an entity draws out their most primal rage. Also, Bludgeon and his Decepticons return.'''

==Synopsis==
==="Primal Fear!"===
[[Optimus Prime (G1)|Optimus Prime]] and [[Jhiaxus (G2)|Jhiaxus]] fight on an unnamed planet in the [[K'tord Nebula]]. Jhiaxus is glorying in the release of combat. Despite the gruesome injuries he is receiving and inflicting, so is Prime.

Overhead, in the [[Autobot]] shuttlecraft ''[[Darkstar]],'' [[Hound (G1)|Hound]] is the only [[Transformer]] still intact; the corpses of Jhiaxus's troops surround him. Hound is desperately trying to reach anyone on the communicator. He begins taking out his frustration on the equipment, but then struggles to regain his calm. He begins recording a message about how Optimus Prime's Autobots, fleeing Jhiaxus, tried to hide in the K'tord Nebula, from which many ships never emerge. However, once within the nebula, tempers began to fray among the Autobots, and the [[Decepticon]]s stopped simply tracking the shuttle and instead attacked. Hound ends the message by saying it's not an SOS, but a warning that something about this planet causes uncontrolled fear and rage, so anyone listening should stay away.

Below, [[Grimlock (G1)|Grimlock]], [[Kup (G1)|Kup]], and other Autobots are fighting Jhiaxus's troops with vicious intensity. Optimus Prime manages to slip away from Jhiaxus for a moment and begins struggling to find his pacifist core. Jhiaxus, deprived of the distraction of combat, begins suffering flashbacks to the tyrannical sadist he was a long time ago. He realizes that he's losing the icy control he's cultivated for so long. Prime returns and tells him that only by confronting and facing down the violent savage within can they truly evolve and become more than just pre-programmed responses. Jhiaxus silently agrees, and as they reject the unreasoning violence, tendrils of [[Shadow parasite|black psychic energy]] flee their bodies. Prime examines the energy and realizes it is a non-physical living thing that feeds on rage.

Refusing to be manipulated by the shadow-stuff, Optimus Prime and Jhiaxus order their troops to stop fighting (having to physically restrain them in some cases). They declare a temporary truce, and Jhiaxus allows the Autobots to leave. On the bridge of his ship, Jhiaxus muses over what the experience on the planet has taught him, while ordering that the infestation be bombed from orbit, so the [[Cybertronian (faction)|Cybertronians]] can colonize the planet safely.

==="Old Evils"===
Jhiaxus returns to his flagship, the ''[[Twilight (G2)|Twilight]]''. He angrily muses about how the recent incident reminds him of when the [[Cybertronian (faction)|Cybertronians]] were a darker and far more violent group. He thanks the Maker that there are no such Transformers around now.

Meanwhile, in another galaxy, just such a group of Decepticons are attacking an alien craft. [[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]], in his titanic ''[[Warworld]]'' battle cruiser, presses the attack against the frog-like space pirates. They fight back, briefly, before the weapons of the ''Warworld'' breach their hull, killing the crew, while leaving the ship intact enough to pillage.

After their victory, Bludgeon muses about his next step. He has built an [[Bludgeon's new army|army]] of [[Transformer]] shells, but the only way to grant them life is with Optimus Prime's [[Matrix of Leadership|Creation Matrix]]. Bludgeon decides the only way to draw Prime away from the safety of [[Cybertron (planet)|Cybertron]] and the [[Autobase]] is to threaten that little planet Prime has protected in the past... [[Earth]].

==Featured characters==
{{featuredcharacters
|c1=
*[[Optimus Prime (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Optimus Prime]] (1)
*[[Hound (G1)|Hound]] (3)
*[[Grimlock (G1)/Marvel Comics continuity|Grimlock]] (4)
*[[Slag (G1)|Slag]] (5)
*[[Blades (G1)|Blades]] (6)
*[[Kup (G1)|Kup]] (7)
*[[Swoop (G1)|Swoop]] (8)

|c2=
*[[Stranglehold]] (12)
*[[Bludgeon (G1)|Bludgeon]] (13)
*[[Fangry]] (14)
*[[Quake (G1)|Quake]] (15)

|h4=[[Cybertronian (faction)|Cybertronians]]|c4=
*[[Jhiaxus (G2)|Jhiaxus]] (2)
*[[Rook (G2)|Rook]] (9)

|h5=Others|c5=
*[[Scrul]] (10)
*[[Khyogi]] (11)
}}

==Quotes==
'''Jhiaxus:''' All pretense of bravado is ''swept away'' by one last wheezing appeal for ''mercy!'' I tell them... ''I have none!''<br/>
'''Optimus Prime:''' ''Jhiaxus''... you're ''boring'' me!

"Let us ''see,'' Jhiaxus... Let us see which ''one'' of us begs for mercy!"
:—'''Optimus Prime,''' scary-ass individual

'''Grimlock:''' Me calm, but me ''still'' want to fight!<br/>
'''Blades:''' Yeah, well... even the most advanced races have their evolutionary ''throwbacks.''

"How many times have I told you ''not'' to rouse me before I'm fully bloated!"
:—'''Captain Khyogi''', who needs his own [[Rubber Ducky]]

'''Stranglehold:''' They're fighting.<br/>
'''Bludgeon:''' ''Good.'' I ''like'' it when they struggle.

==Notes==
* Optmus Prime beats the piss out of Jhiaxus in this issue, gets the crap kicked out of him NY Megatron later
* While the black psychic gunk bears a cursory resemblance to the [[Swarm (G2)|Swarm]] (which features heavily in subsequent issues), it doesn't appear to be related to it.
*A likely source for the story is one of Furman's own. The UK story "[[Distant Thunder!]]" contains nearly all the same themes and the same basic plot of this story.
* Fangry apparently survived having Grimlock's fist through his midsection in "[[End of the Road! (US)|End of the Road!]]".
* Don't get too attached to the way [[Bludgeon's new army]] looks.

===Advertisements===
* None yet identified.

===Reprints===
*2002 — ''[[Transformers: Dark Designs]]''

[[Category:Marvel Generation 2 issues]]

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Primal Fear!