To the Death—and Beyond!

From MediaWiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
« Transformers: The Animated Movie #2 »
"To the Death—and Beyond!"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published November 22, 2006
Cover date November 2006
Writer Bob Budiansky
Artist Don Figueroa
Colorist Josh Burcham
Letterer Robbie Robbins
Editor Chris Ryall
Designer Neil Uyetake
Continuity Cartoon continuity

Optimus Prime dies, while a new Decepticon menace is born.

Synopsis

[edit]
Starscream learns that gold plastic syndrome is no joke.

A dying Optimus Prime designates Ultra Magnus to be the next Matrix-bearer. He prepares to hand it to him but as he dies, the Matrix falls from his hands and Hot Rod catches it. He hands it to Magnus, who stores it in his chest. Unicron is not happy.

Aboard Astrotrain, the Decepticons must jettison some weight to make it to Cybertron so they decide to cast off those who were badly injured in battle. Starscream takes a particular pleasure in disposing of Megatron. This, however, sparks a fight over who will be new Decepticon leader. Unicron finds the cast-off Decepticons and makes Megatron an offer to be restored in order to destroy the Matrix. He agrees and is reformatted as Galvatron, with the others reformatted as Scourge, the Sweeps, Cyclonus and his armada. Unicron also provides them a ship and sends them to destroy the Matrix. Galvatron's first act is revenge, however, as he disrupts Starscream's coronation and promptly kills him. The other Decepticons have no argument.

Unicron attacks Moonbase One and Jazz and Cliffjumper attempt to escape, but are sucked into the monster's maw. Unicron then attacks Moonbase Two; it is consumed as well. Galvatron is angered but Unicron forces him to obey. He travels to Earth and attacks the Autobots, who escape in two shuttles. Cyclonus damages the shuttle carrying Hot Rod, Kup and the Dinobots; it crashes over a strange planet. The other shuttle's crew fakes their destruction by blowing up part of the ship. In pain, Galvatron returns to Unicron while the damaged shuttle heads toward the Planet of Junk. The first shuttle breaks up in the planet's atmosphere and its passengers free-fall to the planet. Hot Rod lands in a body of liquid filled with mechanical tentacles and hungry looking mechanical fish.

[edit]

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Humans Others

Notes

[edit]

Differences between the film and comic

[edit]
  • The coronation scene is shortened, the Constructicons don't play horns, and Galvatron's "will anyone else attempt to fill his shoes?" line is replaced with "and my name is now Galvatron!"
  • Unicron offers his terms (a new body, new troops etc...) as Megatron is being transformed. This means we lose the "And?" / "And nothing!" exchange and "I belong to nobody!"
  • Spike and Bumblebee no longer try to blow up Moonbase Two, and are eaten on the planet rather than sucked in on a shuttle afterward. Spike's expletive is sadly removed.
  • Cyclonus's Armada gets blown up over Autobot City.
  • Kup doesn't get the chance to start his war story, nor does Hot Rod fight the training droid. Kup's attempts to recall how to invert the polarity is gone as well.
  • There is an extra scene not in the movie showing the Autobot shuttle crashing and Hot Rod, Kup and the Dinobots being thrown clear into the water.

Errors

[edit]
  • Page Four has a * box that doesn't lead on from anything (The one that starts "*Starscream is referring...")

Other trivia

[edit]
  • Somewhat ambiguous in the movie itself, this issue identifies Thundercracker as becoming Scourge, Bombshell becoming Cyclonus, Skywarp becoming "the armada" and the other Insecticons becoming the Sweeps.
  • Admittedly, footnotes referring back to previous issues are deeply missed in most modern comic books, but how many people did Bob Budiansky seriously expect to pick up issue 2 of a four-issue adaptation of a 20-year-old movie and need to have pointed out the fact that events referred to occurred in the previous issue of the same mini-series?

Covers (2)

[edit]
  • Regular Cover: Megatron reformatted into Galvatron by Don Figueroa and Josh Burcham
  • Retailer Incentive: Uncolored sketch of regular cover
  • Regular cover
    Regular cover
  • RI cover
    RI cover

Reprints

[edit]

Other than reprints of the full series

  • N/A

Advertisements

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://tfwiki.duckdns.org/index.php?title=To_the_Death—and_Beyond!&oldid=1893511"