Our Finest

« Transformers: Unicron #3 »
"I got it figured out — we got two Titans and a large assortment of morons."
"Our Finest"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 8, 2018
Cover date	Early August, 2018
Written by	John Barber
Art by	Alex Milne
Colors by	Sebastian Cheng (pgs 3, 5-7, 11-14, 16-20) & David García Cruz (pgs 1-2, 4, 8-10, 15)
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	David Mariotte
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era

Drastic options are weighed as all hope seems lost in the fight to defend Cybertron against Unicron.

Synopsis

The Cybertron fleet scrambles into action in response to the appearance of Unicron in the skies above the planet. As spaceport personnel led by Tracks try to calm the civilian Decepticon populace, who think the fleet is abandoning them to die, Elita One invites the Torchbearers to join her aboard Carcer for a direct strike against Unicron, intending to have their combined form Victorion penetrate the monster planet's armor as Optimus Prime did and kill it from within. However, an unexpected enemy appears to bar their way, which they will have to fight their way through before they can reach Unicron: the fleet of the Decepticon Vengeance Division, now allied with Unicron, its ships somehow changed in appearance, having become jagged and spiky. From the bridge of her ship Sabre, Chromia attempts to dissuade Elita from her course, but Elita refuses to run.

In Metroplex's brain chamber, Optimus Prime, Starscream, Windblade, and Rom debate tactics; Rom proposes activating Metroplex to join the fight, while Starscream suggests Metroplex use his Space Bridge to teleport them all off-planet. Jetfire points out that only 30% of the population is within Metroplex, but Starscream is willing to sacrifice the others if it means some can survive. Suddenly, Bumblebee bursts in with Aileron to share what he has learned of Unicron's origins from Omega Supreme; how an alien scientist's doomsday device transformed his world into Unicron, and unleashed the energies that destroyed Prysmos and created the Dire Wraiths. Arcee is able to fill in some of the blanks; the planet in question was Antilla, the first world the Thirteen Primes attempted to colonize by force millions of years ago, sparking a war between Cybertron and the Antillans that she herself fought in. Unicron is not merely a doomsday weapon—it is a weapon of ultimate retribution for the ancient sins of the Cybertronian race.

When Victorion spots another vessel coming under heavy fire from Bludgeon's flagship, Elita orders her to leave them, perfectly willing to sacrifice the fleet if it will allow them to destroy Unicron. Having seen too much death, Victorion refuses, and diverts to attack Bludgeon's ship, hacking her way inside and cleaving a path through the Decepticons within, who have all been mutated, like their ships, into "Maximal" forms. Unfortunately, Bludgeon has a secret weapon waiting to confront Victorion: Monstructor, also mutated like the other Decepticons, whose sheer animalistic might proves more than Victorion can handle.

Optimus Prime seeks further answers about Antilla and Unicron from the mastermind behind the attempted colonization, Shockwave. The captive Decepticon relates how, after the end of the Age of Primes, he and the Maximals relocated to the dead Antilla, where he found the heart of the doomsday device, redubbed it "the Talisman," and had his minions take it to Earth. From there, it found its way back to Cybertron, and now acts as bait to lure Unicron into Shockwave's trap. When Unicron consumes Cybertron, it will be destroyed by the poisoned energon the Talisman has created, leaving the Cybertronian race free to rebuild itself on Earth in its ultimate form, a new empire unencumbered by the legends, religions, and ideologies of the past. With this new information in mind, Starscream restates his belief they should flee, allowing Unicron to eat Cybertron and die. This sends Windblade into a rage, and she begins railing against the moral corruption she believes to be inherent to Cybertron, for which she and all the other colony worlds are now suffering. Windblade transforms to jet mode and starts to fly off, until Arcee suddenly pounces on her back; Arcee has run from the consequences of her role in the Antilla war for millions of years, and she is not about to let Windblade do the same. But Windblade isn't running—she has a plan.

As Carcer comes under a sustained barrage of firepower from Bludgeon's ship, Victorion falls before Monstructor, crumbling back into her component parts after Stormclash is torn from her body. Damning the names of all who have stood against her, Elita orders Carcer to ram Unicron... but before the Titan can make contact, the chaos-bringer unleashes an energy blast from its eye that obliterates Carcer and all aboard.

In desperation, Soundwave fetches the Enigma of Combination, proposing that the entire populace of Cybertron be combined into a giant to fight Unicron hand-to-hand. Unfortunately, Jetfire calculates that the resultant combiner would still be far too small to engage Unicron. With all options running out, even the optimistic Aileron begins to wonder if Starscream's plan to run and sacrifice most of the planet's inhabitants is the only course of action... but it is a course of action Soundwave will not allow. He reaches out telepathically and informs every Decepticon on the planet of Starscream's plan—and naturally, it turns them into a furious mob that storms the barricades and begins flooding towards Metroplex. Arcee comes running back into the room and announces that Windblade has a plan—but with time growing short, even Optimus Prime is paralyzed, unsure of the right course of action. Surprisingly, it is Starscream who makes the call; Windblade believed in him once, and he decides to do the same for her, ruling that that they will stay and enact her plan. But whatever it is, they'd better do it fast, as Unicron begins to sink its talons into Cybertron's surface...

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Other Cybertronians	Others
Skydive (1) Fireflight (2) Slingshot (3, see "Errors") Dust Up (4) Stormclash (5) Pyra Magna (6) Skyburst (7) Silverbolt (8) Jumpstream (10) Rust Dust (11) Sizzle (16) Tracks (17) Chromia (18) Jetfire (23) Windblade (24) Optimus Prime (27) Victorion (29) Aileron (30) Bumblebee (31) Arcee (32) Omega Supreme (34) Scattershot (38) Fastlane (39) Cloudraker (40) Metroplex (50, voice only) Firestar (52)	Fat Tankor (12) Tall Tankor (13) Starscream (26) Shockwave/Onyx Prime (35) Sledge (41) Wideload (42) Bludgeon (43) Soundwave (49) Needlenose (51)	Elita One (9) Zetca (14) Swift (15) Greenlight (20) Lancer (21) Obsidian (28) Various Omega Sentinels (33) Alpha Trion (36) Galvatron (37) Carcer (44) Monstructor (45) Domitius Major (46) Centurion (47) "Prowl" (48)	Unicron (19) D.0.C. (22) Rom (25) Carax (53)

Quotes

"Tough lady 'bots for the win."

—Stormclash

"I thought Omega Supreme was supposed to be on our side."
"Maybe he needed to do a genocide to figure out it's bad? I feel like that happens with Cybertronian guys some times."
"You are all gross."

—Aileron and Bumblebee

"I've seen too much death. We can defeat Unicron and survive—nothing is hopeless. Except you, Decepticons."

—Victorion

"Everyone dies in the end, Victorion.... and the end is here."

—Bludgeon

"You'd leave billions of people—Cybertronians, colonists, Elonians—to die?!"
"Of course he would! This is what Cybertron is. This is what it does to people. Cybertronians caused this! Not me—not Camiens, not Elonians—not any colonists! We're paying the price for your sins!"

—Bumblebee questions Starscream's plan, sending Windblade into a rage

"I regret what happened. Every day. I'm sure Omega regrets it—regretted it—too. But maybe I shouldn't have run from the consequences."

—Arcee

"We have to do something."
"We can ruuuun."
"Shut up, Starscream."

—Bumblebee and Starscream

Notes

Continuity notes

• A small computer readout in the corner of page 3, panel 1 indicates that the giant eyeball-shaped Nemesis spacecraft that Shockwave and the Maximals have been using has now become the right eye of Unicron's robot mode, following his absorption of it in issue #1.
• Rom contests the origin Bumblebee puts forth for the Dire Wraiths, because it contradicts the Solstar Order's belief that they identified and destroyed the Wraiths' home planet centuries ago, as seen in Shining Armor #1.
• Also from the Rom vs. Transformers: Shining Armor mini-series, Bumblebee recalls the fusion of Wraith magic and Cybertronian tech he and Rom witnessed when Sky Blast and Ultra Magnus were taken over by the aliens.
• 'Bee also brings up Kup's death by magic at the hands of Virulina in Transformers vs. Visionaries #1.
• The alien world seen in flashback last issue, which was transformed into Unicron by the doomsday device, is revealed to be Antilla, the world of rust first seen in IDW continuity in the 2017 Transformers annual—a connection that had previously been hinted at by the fact that Antilla and Unicron (as seen in First Strike #6) both orbited a black hole. Additionally, Antilla is revealed to have been the unnamed world seen in Optimus Prime #18, home of the first alien civilization the Primes made contact with and which became Cybertron's first colony of sorts. Unicron itself, then, is the missing thirteenth colony planet Bumblebee flagged up in issue #1! This does, however, raise the question of what happened to the Regenesis ore which should have taken root on Alpha Trion's "colony", now revealed as Unicron: Was there in fact an ore growing on Unicron itself?
• Bumblebee's comment that Cybertronians sometimes need to "do a genocide to figure out it's bad" is surely a light-hearted jab at Megatron's redemption arc over in Lost Light, which... well, is essentially "figuring out genocide is bad".
• Fastlane and Cloudraker appear serving under Scattershot on a ship in the Cybertronian fleet. This is the first time the Clones have appeared in five years, having last cameoed in Robots in Disguise #20; it's not the first time they've worked with Scattershot, having fought alongside him and the other Technobots way back in Spotlight: Arcee.
• With Scattershot's death, this leaves Strafe, who was part of the Lost Light crew at the time, as the only surviving Technobot. Nosecone was dismembered and devoured by Sweeps back in The Transformers #24, while Lightspeed and Afterburner blew themselves up to keep the Kimia Facility out of Galvatron's hands in The Transformers #26.
• Bludgeon observes that Victorion's gravity powers are a product of Ore-4. Presumably, this means her constituents acquired them through sustained exposure to the ore during their lives on its native world, Caminus.
• Monstructor returns! The original Combiner hasn't been seen since Dark Cybertron: Finale. Bludgeon refers to his defeat at the hands of Omega Supreme millions of years ago, as seen in the 2012 Robots in Disguise annual.
• Shockwave, as Onyx Prime, was shown to have relocated to Antilla/Unicron following the end of the Age of the Primes in the 2017 Transformers annual, explaining in Optimus Prime #22 (released on the same day as this issue) that he needed to do so because Cybertron had become "unwelcoming". It's unclear if he specifically went there to recover the Unicron doomsday device, or if he only found it after arriving on the planet.
• The Unicron device is revealed to be the Talisman, the mysterious relic sent by "Onyx Prime" to Earth which was the central plot device of the Revolutionaries, First Strike, and Transformers vs. Visionaries series. We're kicking ourselves we didn't figure this out last issue; the Talisman has previously displayed many of the same abilities seen in these two issues, including a connection to the forces of magic, the power to mutate lifeforms into Dire Wraiths (as it did to human beings in Revolutionaries #1), and the ability for its power to transcend the flow of time and space (having hurled Sgt. Savage through time in Revolutionaries #5). Other abilities the Talisman has evinced, it now becomes obvious, are ones that have often been displayed by other incarnations of Unicron, including psychic powers, and the ability to reformat and upgrade Cybertronians and other technology. That said, any reason for the Talisman's apparent connection to Microspace (as seen in Revolutionaries #2) is still unclear...
• The Transformers who would take the Talisman to Earth (including Domitius Major, Centurion, and the other Hearts of Steel characters) have previously been identified as Eukarians for their beast modes, but are here revealed to have been Maximals who lived with Shockwave/Onyx on Antilla. This clarifies Centurion's memory from the Transformers: First Strike one-shot of a "black star in the sky above [his] homeworld," which never fitted with the idea he was from Eukaris.
• Windblade mentions that this isn't her first "Shockwave-plans-to-destroy-everything," referring to her role in the prior Dark Cybertron crossover.
• This issue is the first explicit mention of CNA since Spotlight: Arcee.

Transformers references

• Fastlane and Cloudraker are drawn based on their recent Titans Return toys. The pair have been differentiated by colour; Fastlane has a grey face, like the Clones' Titans Return toys and the characters' appearance in the Generation 1 cartoon, while Cloudraker's face is red, like the Clones' original 1987 toys, and their appearances in IDW comics.
• Unicron fires the energy blast that destroys Carcer from his right eye (the former Nemesis), which was the same eye he fired blasts from in The Transformers: The Movie.
• When Tall Tankor leaves the other Decepticons and takes to the sky, Swift wonders if he is going to "fight or flee," referencing the Generation 1 cartoon episode of the same name.

Errors

• The fourth paragraph on the "Story so far" page does not capitalize "Army" in "Maximal army" when issues #1 and #2 did.
• Slingshot has been drawn among the fleeing Aerialbots on page 1, panel 1, but he's been dead for several years after succumbing to injuries sustained in Robots in Disguise #16. He's a bit off-color, too, with a white head and blue eyes instead of his normal orange, and grey plane parts instead of white. Has he been deliberately mis-colored to obfuscate the error?
• As in the previous issue, on page 1, panel 3, Elita One is titled as the "council representative" while her actual position is the Carcerian First, her appointed delegates being Obsidian and Strika.
• If Onyx Prime only discovered the Talisman on Antilla "eons after" the first Cybertronian war, then there's no way it could have been in his possession during the events of Optimus Prime #10, in which it appeared in the background. We'll have to write that issue off as the error.
• Revolutionaries #5 initially presented Garrison Krieger as the one who came up with the "Talisman" moniker as a spur-of-the moment nickname. Perhaps they just came up with the same idea separately?
• As Victorion separates, Rust Dust is miscolored as Dust Up, while Dust Up can still be seen attached to Victorion.
• Pyra Magna is shown with her right leg intact following the separation of Victorion, and next issue will confirm that her left leg is now missing. If she were following her toy's transformation scheme, it technically ought to be her right leg that's missing, as her torso mode is formed back-to-front relative to her robot mode.
• The view of Cybertron from space shown on the final page of this issue depicts it with a very classical look, covered with buildings—which ignores the fact that Cybertron is supposed to still be a primordial wasteland, with Metroplex/Iacon and the surrounding area as the only population center.

Deathlist

• Scattershot, Fastlane, Cloudraker, and unnumbered other Autobots; destroyed in the battle with the Decepticon fleet
• Stormclash; implied to have died after being ripped off of Victorion
• The crew of Carcer, including Obsidian; obliterated by Unicron, with Elita One left as the only survivor

Other trivia

• This issue also includes a four-page M.A.S.K.: Mobile Armored Strike Kommand back-up strip, "Reunion", the next in a series of strips serving as "farewells" to the various Hasbro Universe properties as everything heads towards a close. Set a little further into the future than the main story this issue, it features M.A.S.K. rescuing civilians from the dangers caused by a "gravitational disturbance" within Earth's orbit; obviously, the arrival of Unicron over the planet, though the story never out-and-out says this, presumably to preserve the surprise when it actually happens in the next issue of the comic. No Transformers appear in the story.
• Other backmatter includes the third installment in a series of interviews with creators from IDW's past. This issue, it's key "Phase 2" creators More than Meets the Eye/Lost Light writer James Roberts and Robots in Disguise/The Transformers artist Andrew Griffith.

Covers (4)

• Cover A: Titans and combiners enter the fray as Unicron attacks, by Alex Milne and Sebastian Cheng
• Cover B: Metroplex, Jetfire, Thundercracker, Soundwave, Acroyear, and Marissa Faireborn, by James Raiz and David García Cruz; connects to Raiz's other covers for the series to form a larger image
• Retailer incentive Cover A: Windblade and Starscream are aghast as Metroplex hurls himself into Unicron's maw, by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham
• Retailer incentive Cover B: Arcee by Francesco Francavilla; connects to Francavilla's other covers for the series to form a larger image

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• Transformers: Unicron #4
• Transformers: Unicron
• Optimus Prime #23
• Lost Light #23
• Unicron checklist

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