Lord of Misrule: Test Flight II

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	"Lord of Misrule: Test Flight II" {{#if: \| {{#if: \|; (')}} {{#if:\|; ""}}}}
Publisher	IDW Publishing}}
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First published	July 14, 2021}}
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Cover date	June 2021}}
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Written by	Brian Ruckley}}
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Art by	Angel Hernandez (pg. 1-15), Anna Malkova (pg. 16-20)}}
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Colors	David García Cruz}}
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Letters by	Jake M. Wood}}
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Editor	David Mariotte, Tom Waltz and Riley Farmer}}
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ist}}{{#if: \| by}}	}}
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{{#switch:{{#sub:xx|2|14}}|dark cybertron=}}

Jumpstream joins forces with some unlikely heroes as she tries to escape the nightmarish kingdom of Exarchon.

Synopsis

Stranded in the ruins of Iacon and brought before the lord of Cybertron, Jumpstream can't believe what she's seeing: Exarchon, wearing the bodies of Megatron, Onslaught, and Shockwave, is the unquestioned ruler of the entire planet! When Jumpstream stammers that he should be dead and gone, the tripartite Cybertronian dismisses her as delusional; he has no further business with the rebel and orders his Skywarp drones to hand her off to the mercenaries so that she can be sold to the Voin. As the guards haul her away, Jumpstream begins to piece together what's happened. In this world, she deduces, Exarchon must have won the War of the Threefold Spark, and as she reaches this grim conclusion the drones turn her over to a band of Thraal on the outskirts of the city.

Though Jumpstream's tired and running dangerously low on energon, the aliens double-time her through the desolate landscape. As she passes one horror after the next, she wonders if some version of her is buried in the mass graves and charnel pits that litter this version of Cybertron... but these thoughts are quickly pushed to the side when a gigantic explosion immolates the lead Thraal! A battered Bumblebee and a group of Cybertronians leap from their hiding places to finish off the aliens; Powerglide takes out the first with a thermal lance, and Swift rescues Powerglide by tossing a magnetic explosive onto the second. But when Jumpstream asks if Swift recognizes her, the confused Swift points out that Jumpstream's dead... there's no time to discuss the problem, however, as Bumblebee points out that they need to retreat before reinforcements arrive. An exhausted Jumpstream confesses that she has almost no fuel left, but when she asks if they have any energon to spare, an incredulous Blackjack scoffs at the notion: only Exarchon and his lackeys have access to energon and the self-appointed lord of Cybertron has been siphoning the planet's remaining energon off-world. A suspicious Bumblebee demands to know if Jumpstream's working for the enemy; she doesn't get a chance to answer, however, before an explosion blows Swift in half!

Vortex and Triggerhappy have finally found Bumblebee and brought multiple Skywarp drones and Insecticon clones to finish the job—willing servants of Exarchon, they're eager to crush the last rebel holdout. Though Bumblebee and his team try to make a fighting retreat, a swarm of Insecticon clones overwhelm Blackjack and drag him under; Jumpstream explains that she doesn't have enough fuel to teleport to safety, but urges the pair to transform and go on without them. Bumblebee reminds her that there is no energon anymore; he and the others have been forced to use nucleon for so long that they no longer possess alternate modes. Jumpstream makes one last attempt to explain what's happened to her: she's not from this Cybertron, and without some way to recharge her teleportation rig she won't be able to return to her own timeline. At that moment, Powerglide finally falls to Triggerhappy; Bumblebee returns the favor by blowing Triggerhappy's head off and shutting the loudmouthed warrior up for good, then tells Jumpstream to scavenge whatever energon and nucleon she can from the two corpses. As Bumblebee takes up Powerglide's discarded weapon, he admits that they lost their war long, long ago; he hands over his own nucleon supply, however, and tells her that he can still do one last good deed by buying enough time for her to escape. The clones close in as Jumpstream fumbles with the controls for a few desperate moments... then successfuly escapes back into unspace, following the dimensional wake from her last trip to guide her back to her own world. As Jumpstream crash-lands in Perceptor's workshop in Praxus, she's unaware that her trip has again caught the attention of the mysterious figure floating in the void...

In Shockwave's hidden laboratory, Sunstorm's mental state has continued to deteriorate. Though the Seeker pleads for Onslaught to release him, the warrior pointedly ignores his babbling, and advises Vortex to heed his advice as the two change shifts.

In Iacon's medical center, meanwhile, a miracle has occurred—Cyclonus races through the corridors to Flatline's operating room and reunites with Provoke, who's somehow reawakened from her long slumber. Though she's still badly damaged and barely conscious, she has just enough presence of mind to recognize her old compatriot, who tells Provoke that the war is over...

As Ratchet does what he can for a comatose Jumpstream, Perceptor tries to explain the situation to Pyra Magna, who's furious with the scientist for taking one of her best warriors out of action. Although Perceptor initially believed that Jumpstream had somehow crossed universes, Lancer's analysis revealed the presence of decaying chronon particles, which suggests a new hypothesis—Jumpstream's last teleport didn't take her across dimensions, but across time. Jumpstream never left their universe at all, but somehow traveled many kilocycles into Cybertron's future—Lancer muses that Jumpstream can tell them exactly what'll happen to Cybertron, if they can ever wake her up.

In a realm beyond space and time, the mysterious figure claws its way through unspace and locks onto Jumpstream's trail, an immaterial beacon that guides it back to present-day Cybertron. In an explosive burst of fiery energy, Skywarp re-materializes deep in the wilderness and triumphantly announces that Cybertron's Lord of Misrule has finally returned!

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.

{{#if:* Jumpstream (1)

Perceptor (13)
Lancer (14)
Pyra Magna (21)
Ratchet (22)|

{{#if:* Jumpstream (1)

Perceptor (13)
Lancer (14)
Pyra Magna (21)
Ratchet (22)|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |
Jumpstream (1)
Perceptor (13)
Lancer (14)
Pyra Magna (21)
Ratchet (22) }}{{#if:* Onslaught (15)
Sunstorm (16)
Vortex (17)|

Autobots }}{{#if:* Onslaught (15) Sunstorm (16) Vortex (17)\|	Decepticons }}{{#if:* Exarchon (2) Skywarp drones (3) Insecticon clones (5) Triggerhappy (10) Vortex (11)\|	Threefold Spark }}{{#if:* Thraal mercenaries (4) Bumblebee (6) Blackjack (7) Powerglide (8) Swift (9) Skywarp (12) Cyclonus (18) Provoke (19) Flatline (20)\|	Others }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}
Onslaught (15) Sunstorm (16) Vortex (17) }}{{#if:* Exarchon (2) Skywarp drones (3) Insecticon clones (5) Triggerhappy (10) Vortex (11)\|	Exarchon (2) Skywarp drones (3) Insecticon clones (5) Triggerhappy (10) Vortex (11) }}{{#if:* Thraal mercenaries (4) Bumblebee (6) Blackjack (7) Powerglide (8) Swift (9) Skywarp (12) Cyclonus (18) Provoke (19) Flatline (20)\|	Thraal mercenaries (4) Bumblebee (6) Blackjack (7) Powerglide (8) Swift (9) Skywarp (12) Cyclonus (18) Provoke (19) Flatline (20) }}{{#if:\|	}}{{#if:\|	}}

Quotes

"Wearing the colors of a long-dead enemy? You must be tired of your existence. Is that it? The defeat, the fear, the hiding, the failure. All too much for you? I can give you what you need, if so. I will. The mercy of extinction."

—Exarchon

"SAY MY NAME!"
"Headless. That's it, right?"

—Bumblebee kills Triggerhappy

"If saving the galaxy from having to put up with Triggerhappy is my last good deed, I guess it'll do."

—Bumblebee

"I am become what I always was... but never knew... or had forgotten. I have awoken. Let me wake you, Onslaught. Let me show you the new world."

—Sunstorm gets creepy

"Oh, Cybertron. It's been too long. Much too long. But now we can make up for lost time, you and me. Your Lord of Misrule has returned... and oh, how I've missed you."

—Skywarp

Notes

Continuity notes

Even before the reveal, the comic drops a few hints that the "alternate universe" isn't quite what it seems. Galaxies #6 established Bumblebee as a post-war forging, so in an alternate timeline where Exarchon won it's likely that he wouldn't exist at all. In a later conversation, Bumblebee remembers Jumpstream as one of the warriors who fought Exarchon the "first time round".
On a similar note, many Insecticon clones appear in the future scenes, seemingly serving Exarchon as their progenitors did in the first war. While the present-day clones who appeared in Transformers: Escape were mindless, animalistic creatures, the ones here display the ability to transform into robot modes; this is the future, however, so maybe they've had time to learn...
In issue #12, Nautica noted the Thraal's propensity for roboticized warfare: the future Thraal use robot suits to keep their Cybertronian captives in line, and another is shown driving a one-man tank based on the model from Escape #1.
The mysterious pillars of purple light that appeared in the previous issue are revealed to be the planet's energon being siphoned into space. In lieu of their usual fuel source, Bumblebee and his band of rebels are forced to use nucleon and have accordingly lost their ability to transform, the same fate that Treadshot, Catgut, and the other members aboard the Iron Hope all suffered.
Even in a dystopian future, Triggerhappy has maintained his strange habit of forcing his victims to say his name before he kills them—he previously pulled this stunt on Beachcomber and his team in issue #21.
Powerglide wields a thermal lance, present-day Sideswipe's weapon of choice.
The fact that this adventure takes place in the future and not an alternate reality pretty heavily implies that Exarchon cheated death by stealing an inconspicuous body and is currently lying low, waiting for the right time to re-emerge. As it so happens, several characters who could've conceivably come into contact with Exarchon during the war are behaving oddly:
- Sunstorm, who is very likely one of the many war-forged Seekers alluded to in issue #24, babbles that he has become "what he always was" and has made repeated offers to show his captors something that will "awaken them"—an oblique reference to Exarchon's body-stealing abilities?
- Provoke conspicuously vanished during the final battle of the war and has somehow survived being buried underground for megacycles. She only returns to life after Jumpstream returns from her trip to the future, and the fact that she only recognizes Cyclonus as someone who fought in the war could be interpreted in several ways.
- Skywarp, of course, worked closely with Exarchon and Shockwave during the war, as per Escape #3, and has apparently been stranded in unspace for some time. It's certainly possible that he's bigged himself up as Cybertron's "Lord of Misrule" for shits n' giggles, but it's certainly a title grandiose enough to fit Exarchon's ego...
The final page shows a pair of flyts eating a skitter; Prowl had previously noted their fondness for eating the critters in #5.

Transformers references

In an odd bit of toyline fidelity, the Thraal mercenaries wear the black, triangular insignia used by the Mercenary faction in the War for Cybertron cartoon and toyline. Two of the mercenaries wear bulky suits of yellow power armor, based on the mech suit worn by the Thraal warlord Durguth in Titan's Transformers magazine.
Swift namedrops the Sonic Canyons as the place where her timeline's version of Jumpstream and Cyclonus died.

Errors

On page thirteen, there's a period between Bumblebee's lines "I guess" and "it'll do" when there should be a comma.
When Jumpstream reappears in Perceptor's workshop, Lancer is drawn based on how she appeared in IDW's Till All Are One, with a round head and a visor over her eyes. In Anna Malkova's subsequent panels, she returns to her toy-accurate appearance, with a square head and no visor.

Other trivia

Originally solicited for June 30th, this issue lands just two weeks late.

Covers (3)

Cover A: Jumpstream enslaved by a Voin, by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado
Cover B: Jumpstream and Skywarp in the void, by Josh Burcham
Retailer incentive cover: Something's followed Jumpstream home, by Winston Chan

Reprints

Transformers Volume 5: Horrors Near and Far (June 8, 2022) ISBN 168405883X / ISBN 978-1684058839
- Collects Transformers (2019) issues #31–36 & Annual 2021, Transformers Halloween Special, and Wreckers—Tread & Circuits issues #1–4.
- Bonus material includes alternate covers.
- Hardcover format.

Volume 5: Horrors Near and Far – cover art by Cryssy Cheung

External links

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