The Last Days of Optimus Prime

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	"The Last Days of Optimus Prime" {{#if: \| {{#if: \|; (')}} {{#if:\|; ""}}}}
Publisher	Transforce Productions}}
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First published	April 22, 2000 (Transforce 2000)}}
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Script	Simon Furman}}
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Art	Jeff Anderson (story pages), Lee Sullivan ("cover")}}
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Lettering	Richard Starkings and Comicraft}}
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This is Apocrypha

The content of this page is considered to be apocrypha or pseudocanon. Fiction that is considered pseudocanon generally falls into one of two categories. It is most likely either unofficial fiction from an official creator that is so informative as to the creator's thought process and/or so influential to the fandom as to be worth documenting, or fiction that is published in such a way as to render it unofficial, such as fan works published as ancillary or bonus images/fiction with other official work. As such, new ideas and concepts introduced here may not hold true for work that is completely canonical.

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{{#switch:{{#sub:xx|2|14}}|dark cybertron=}}

"The Last Days of Optimus Prime" is an unofficial two-page comic strip written by Simon Furman and illustrated by Jeff Anderson for Transforce 2000. Much like Furman's later Transforce work, "Alignment", the strip was produced without the approval of Hasbro and as such is considered non-canon, but is included on this wiki for the pseudocanonical insights it offers into other pieces of work by Furman from around the same time period.

Plot

On a post-Great Upgrade Cybertron, a weary Optimus Prime feels adrift and alone in a world so greatly changed from the one he once knew. As the being known as "the Veteran", an old ally of Prime's, flies by overhead, Prime realizes how some have been able to grow and change in this new world, but how he can find no place for himself. In the final days of his life, desiring only to join his old friends in the world beyond, Prime seeks out the mysterious J'nwan. Reflecting on the triumphs and tragedies of his long life as he goes, Prime suddenly finds himself in the J'nwan, where he is warmly greeted by Megatron. Inquiring if this is truly the end, Prime is met only with laughter, a handshake, and the assurance that... it never ends.

Featured characters

{{#if:*The Veteran (1)

Optimus Prime (2)
Bumblebee (3)
Jazz (4)
Grimlock (5)
Prowl (6)|

{{#if:*The Veteran (1)

Optimus Prime (2)
Bumblebee (3)
Jazz (4)
Grimlock (5)
Prowl (6)|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |
The Veteran (1)
Optimus Prime (2)
Bumblebee (3)
Jazz (4)
Grimlock (5)
Prowl (6) }}{{#if:*Megatron (7)
Shockwave (9)|

Autobots }}{{#if:Megatron (7) Shockwave* (9)\|	Decepticons }}{{#if:\|	Humans }}{{#if:*Unicron (8)\|	Others }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}
Megatron (7) Shockwave (9) }}{{#if:\|	}}{{#if:*Unicron (8)\|	Unicron (8) }}{{#if:\|	}}{{#if:\|	}}

Relation to other works

The J'nwan was introduced the previous year, in BotCon 1999's "Schism" and "Paradox" chapters of Reaching the Omega Point. While BotCon 2000's "Terminus" featured Optimus Prime and Megatron as inhabitants of this realm, it was "Last Days" which first established this fact, released as it was three months before BotCon's story. The story takes something of a more intriguing, metaphysical approach to the J'nwan—where the BotCon story regards it as simply a physical, scientifically-defined place that one travels to, "Last Days" describes it as being "a stilled heartbeat away," and has Prime arrive without even realizing it, almost making it seem as if he quietly slips away into death before he finds himself there.

More significantly (and less metaphorically), "Last Days" was the only piece of fiction to explicitly establish that "the Veteran," introduced in the BotCon 1999 story, was an evolved Swoop.

Notes

Continuity notes

The story is set during the transitional period of time between the age of the Autobots and Decepticons, and the age of the Maximals and Predacons.
While this story was published a year before "Alignment", it must instead be set after it due to Optimus reaching the final end of his life in this story, while he is still alive (albeit, in a near-death state) in "Alignment". And the fact that the Maximals and Predacons have both come about by this story's time, while they haven't yet come about during "Alignment".
Swoop is said to now be known simply as "the Veteran". This is a confirmation of the character's identity from his unnamed appearances in the BotCon-exclusive storyline Reaching the Omega Point (which was also penned by Furman).
Optimus says that his fellow Autobots, "are long gone, ensconced now in the pantheon of myth," which matches up with how both the Beast Wars and Beast Machines treated such things as the Ark, Vector Sigma and its Key, and the Plasma Energy Chamber all as mere legends whose actual existences were left in doubt by the general populace of the Maximal/Predacon-ruled Cybertron.
Optimus flashes back to three events from the Marvel The Transformers comics:
- One of his battles with Megatron.
- His imprisonment by Shockwave, who kept him as just a head, from Issue #5 to Issue #12.
- His unleashing the power of the Creation Matrix to destroy Unicron in Issue #75.
Optimus ends the story by entering J'nwan, the Valhalla-type location first introduced, by Furman, in Reaching the Omega Point.
Megatron appears to greet Optimus upon the latter's entering J'nwan. He appears in his original Generation 1 body rather than as either Galvatron or his Generation 2 tank body (just like how he looked when he emerged from J'nwan in the BotCon 2000 comic story "Terminus"), suggesting he somehow reverted to his original form either prior to or upon his own arrival in J'nwan.

Transformers references

Swoop is said to have "changed his name and appearance many times, adapting to the evolving landscape of Cybertron". The former is a reference to the fact that Swoop was, in the Marvel Comics continuity, originally named "Divebomb" before a Decepticon had stolen the name from him (which was the subject of the two UK stories "What's in a Name?" and "Grudge Match!"), while the latter is in reference to the Great Upgrade first mentioned in the Beast Machines cartoon episode "Sparkwar Pt. II: The Search" (which had only just premiered in Canada one month before this story's release).
Optimus rattles off a list of elements commonly associated with Maximals and Predacons: "Energy-consciousness and downsizing" (which were originally associated with Micromasters, and which Furman first connected to the Maximals and Predacons—and specifically the Veteran—in the BotCon 1999 story "Schism") and "alliances and councils" (the Beast Wars cartoon introduced such entities as the Predacon Alliance, the Maximal High Council, and the Tripredacus Council).
Megatron's dialogue bubbles are rendered in the same "daggered" style that Comicraft previously used for the Decepticons in the Generation 2 comics, and for the Predacons in the BotCon 1997 comic story "Ground Zero".

Other trivia

Optimus is drawn in a deliberately vague body design meant to differ from his previous bodies, which further represents the fact that this is the very end of Optimus's natural life.

External Links

"The Last Days of Optimus Prime" hosted on Tumblr

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