Origin Myths

« Optimus Prime #10
"Origin Myths"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 30, 2017
Cover date	August 2017
Written by	John Barber
Art by	Kei Zama (pg. 1-3, 19-20), Livio Ramondelli (pg. 4-18)
Colors by	Josh Burcham (Zama pages), Livio Ramondelli (own pages)
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	Carlos Guzman
Continuity	IDW continuity
Chronology	Current era

Alpha Trion relates the tale of how the Thirteen Primes came together as one and the origins of the Autobot insignia.

Synopsis

Arcee and Sunstreaker bring Sideswipe's body to Cybertron for interment. As they emerge through the space bridge, they are met by Optimus Prime, who offers them his condolences, though the pair have few words to spare right now. They are followed through the bridge by an excited Aileron, who informs Optimus that the President of the United States has finally agreed to Earth joining the Council of Worlds. Aileron hands Optimus a holographic receiver through which the president's confirmation message will be transmitted once she has the details worked out. To pass the time until the president's message comes through, Optimus, Pyra Magna, and Starscream gather in Alpha Trion's quarters, where the old 'bot tells them a story of the first time Cybertron became united...

Millions of years ago, Arcee—then identifying as male—and her brother Galvatron are champion gladiators who fight for the amusement of Septimus Prime and his Supplicants of Arrius. That changes when, with energon running low, Septimus orders the two to fight each other until only one is left alive... but their battle is interrupted by the arrival of Megatronus, lord of the Darklands, who slays the Supplicants and declares his intent to absorb Septimus's kingdom of Protohex into his. When Septimus refuses to join him, Megatronus hurls him into the gladiator ring for Arcee and Galvatron to kill.

A short time later, the panicked Vector Prime brings news of Septimus's death and the sacking of Protohex before Alpha Trion, Alchemist Prime, Solus Prime, and Nexus Prime—a group of Primes who have all allied to build a settlement they call the Crystal City. The conquering horde now marches toward the Cyrstal City, but ahead of it comes the Primes' dark brother Onyx Prime and his new companion Liege Maximo, who has also lost his kingdom to the Darklanders. The Primes are initially suspicious of this newcomer, but Onyx and Maximo explain they have come to offer aid to the Primes in fighting off the Darklander army. Onyx hopes they can all agree to work as one, but if they cannot, he and his army of beasts will fight the Darklanders alone. Onyx is scornful of the other Primes' belief in the Guiding Hand, preferring to make history with his own actions rather than following the teachings of what he sees as fairy stories, but Alpha Trion takes him aside to point out the importance of such legends and stories. Those tales are what have helped inspire the building of Crystal City, and will provide the inspiration the people of the city need to join the impending battle, despite the fact they are but poor farmers, rather than warriors. Onyx genuinely begins to appreciate the power that stories hold, and Alpha Trion agrees to convince the other Primes to work him with to combat the Darklanders.

Once an alliance is made, Onyx's beasts train the people of the Crystal City as best they can, but time is short, and the Darklanders are soon upon them, with Arcee and Galvatron leading the charge. The battle is brutal and bloody, and partway into the fighting, the very substance of Cybertron itself begins to quake. From beneath the surface of the planet, three living legends emerge, drawn out by the fighting: Metroplex, Chela, and Metrotitan, the first Titans, who legends claim fought by Primus's side in eons past. The entire battlefield falls silent at this awesome sight... which proves to be just the opening Onyx Prime needs. He scythes his way through the Darklanders, making straight for their leader... but is taken aback to discover that that leader is Megatronus, an old friend of his. The two make peace, and the battle is brought to an end, all eight Primes declaring a truce and that they will work together for a unified Cybertron.

As Crystal City celebrates its new future, Onyx takes a leaf out of Alpha Trion's book, and begins making up stories of his own, starting with one about a "Chosen One" that he tells a drunken Alchemist Prime. Next, Onyx shows Alpha Trion a sigil he has designed that will represent their alliance—the symbol that will become the Autobot insignia, which Onyx claims is based on the face of Primus himself, as described by Metrotitan. Alpha Trion is not convinced, and grows concerned that Onyx is blurring the line between a "story" and a "lie". Arcee, meanwhile, can already see a different kind of lie taking form; she predicts that the five remaining Primes from across Cybertron will soon join forces with the eight of Crystal City, and together, the lie they will believe together is that they are superior to other Cybertronians. Trion mutters that it will be Arcee's job to keep them in their place, then departs to speak with one of the Titans, intending to learn all he can about Cybertron before everything changes...

Unable to decipher the parable of Alpha Trion's story, Starscream dismisses the whole thing as nonsense, but Optimus cautions him to remember it as Cybertron moves towards a new unified future. Just then, the president's transmission comes through, and she introduces the group to Earth's newly-appointed representative to the council. The face of Buster the dog fills the holo-display, causing Starscream and Pyra Magna to go into conniptions, but a moment later, the actual representative comes into view: Marissa Faireborn!

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in Alpha Trion's story.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Humans	The Primes	Others
Arcee (1) Sunstreaker (2) Optimus Prime (4) Aileron (5) Pyra Magna (6)	President (21) Marissa Faireborn (23)	Alpha Trion (7) Septimus Prime (10) Megatronus (11) Vector Prime (12) Alchemist Prime (13) Solus Prime (14) Nexus Prime (15) Onyx Prime (16) Liege Maximo (17)	Bob (3) Starscream (8) Galvatron (9) Metroplex (18) Chela (19) Metrotitan (20) Buster (22)

Quotes

"Progress is glacial, Pyra Magna. Until it isn't."

—Optimus Prime

"Speak of the devil... and here I am."

—Starscream

"All stories are true, Onyx... if they tell a truth."

—Alpha Trion on the power of stories to inspire

"Things are looking bad."
"Such is the way of combat, storyteller. If war looked good, why would we do anything else?"

—Alpha Trion and Onyx Prime

"There is a difference between saying all stories are true... and believing all lies."

—Alpha Trion on the power of stories to decieve

"What kind of a made-up name is Megatronus?"

—Starscream questions the veracity of Alpha Trion's story

"The people of Earth... and us. We're entering an uncertain future."
"I may not have learned much over these millions of years... but I do know... all futures are uncertain."

—Pyra Magna and Optimus Prime

Notes

Continuity notes

• Alpha Trion recalls having his head cut off, which happened at the hands of Sentinel Prime in The Transformers #56. Optimus notes Garrison Blackrock's involvement in the escapade (as a Titan Master, he took the place of Trion's head in issue #57) and mentions that Blackrock now wears the Autobot symbol, as seen over in Revolutionaries, prompting Trion to tell his story.
• The history of the Autobot symbol was first talked about briefly by Trion in Spotlight: Orion Pax, a conversation Prime remembers.
• This issue gives us our first proper look at Arcee back before she was re-engineered by Jhiaxus, at a time when she identified as male. Arcee first mentioned having a brother just last issue, who is revealed in this story to be Galvatron; the reveal casts new light on the characters' curious closeness and familiarity during the second "season" of Robots in Disguise, and in particular, a discussion they had on "brotherhood" in The Transformers #42.
• It's a little eyebrow-raising to see a fourteenth Prime, Septimus Prime, appear on ancient Cybertron, but not at all illogical for IDW continuity. After all, here, the Primes aren't the divine first creations of Primus that they are in other continuities—they're just the 'bots who emerged as tribal leaders in Cybertronian prehistory, so there could easily be any number of them. That said, Onyx Prime does single out Septimus as "not one of" the real Primes, and Septimus's whole attitude, plus the ease with which Galvatron and Arcee dispatch him, do combine to paint him as a bit of a pretender to the title.
• Galvatron was originally stated to come from Protohex in More than Meets the Eye #9, but has been consistently identifying himself as hailing from the Darklands since Robots in Disguise #30. This issue explains the inconsistency; he was originally from Protohex, where Septimus Prime's coliseum was located, but Protohex was then absorbed into the Darklands when it was conquered by Megatronus.
• As Alpha Trion and Onyx Prime talk on page 11, the Talisman, the mysterious ancient obelisk that is the central macguffin of Revolutionaries, can be spotted casually propped against a wall in the background. Revolutionaries has established that this artifact once belonged to Onyx Prime, but its origins—connected to both Microspace and the Dire Wraiths as well as Cybertron—are currently unknown.
• Way back when Metrotitan first appeared in the 2012 Robots in Disguise annual, when the concepts of the Guiding Hand and the Knights of Cybertron were still very new, the story accidentally muddled the two up; the 2012 More than Meets the Eye annual had just explained that the Titans served the Knights, but the Robots in Disguise annual said they served the Hand, which didn't sit with More than Meets the Eye's presentation of the Hand as just a creation myths. Other stories since (like Primacy and Redemption) have established the existence of legends that claim the Titans did exist at the time of the Guiding Hand, and this issue revisits the original gaffe and smooths it out, by having Onyx—now well into the business of making up stories to sway others to his way of thinking—claim that Metrotitan served the Guiding Hand in ancient times.
• Mention is made of "Primus's opposite" once again, IDW's preferred way of alluding to Unicron, which began in the Death of Optimus Prime. Outside of these allusions, Unicron has still not appeared or been referenced in IDW continuity as of yet.
• As mentioned by Galvatron a few years ago in The Transformers #35, Alchemist Prime is shown to invent the "Dark Cybertron" prophecy that talks of the "Chosen One" after getting drunk on rancid engex. He actually credits Onyx with telling him about it...
• The end of this issue leads into First Strike #1, and Earth's induction into the council. Unfortunately, that issue had already come out several weeks before this, spoiling the surprise of Marissa's appointment—though the president had already hinted at it pretty hard last issue.

Transformers references

• Alchemist Prime scarcely appears without a drink in his hand. The "rancid engex" gag was the only pre-existing basis for his booziness in IDW continuity, and it might just be an outgrowth of that... but it could also be drawn from "Ask Vector Prime," which built on that gag to paint a larger picture of Alchemist was a big drinker, drawing parallels between him and the Greek god of wine Dionysus, and jokingly implying he might be the owner of the most famous bar on Cybertron.
• Beeeeast Warrrs! **guitar riff** Among Onyx's animal-army is a robot who looks an awful lot like Beast Wars Megatron, seen in the bottom-right corner of page 10, and what appears to be Optimus Primal filling the bottom-right corner of page 12. Of the two, Optimus is set to have a new toy released as part of the Power of the Primes toyline, so this isn't likely just some random easter egg...!

Errors

• Arrius is described as the god of wisdom, making it clear "Arrius" is just another name for Solomus of the Guiding Hand. Megatronus says that the Darklanders know him as "Solomnus," but it's not clear if that's a wee typo, or if it's just a third name the deity is known by.
• Onyx Prime is drawn with only two cloven, digitigrade legs, instead of the four-legged centaur-style lower body he should have, per his previous on-panel appearances in the 2017 Transformers annual and Revolutionaries #4. Given that Onyx has a different blue color scheme for this issue, maybe this is meant to be on purpose and we're seeing him in an earlier form, but it's easy to believe that this physical attribute could have been accidentally overlooked by the artists, since the character's pose in the first piece of art of him, published in The Covenant of Primus, always did kinda obfuscate it.
• Starscream questioning the validity of Megatronus's name isn't an error per se but it does stand out as slightly odd considering Elita One told him the Fallen's true name when recounting the origins of Liege Maximo. Then again he might not have been paying attention.

Covers (4)

• Cover A: Onyx Prime and Liege Maximo by Kei Zama and Josh Burcham
• Cover B: Arcee and Galvatron by Casey Coller and John-Paul Bove
• Cover C: Alpha Trion by Andrew Griffith
• Retailer incentive cover: Jazz by Zerob

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