The Morphlings

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"The Morphlings"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
Published in	Beast Wars Annual
First published	April 20, 2022
Cover date	April 2022
Written by	Nick Marino
Art by	Andrea Bell
Letters by	Jake M. Wood

A campfire provides Cheetor with the perfect opportunity to tell a ghost story about an evolution revolution.

Synopsis

One starry evening, while waiting for Optimus Primal to return, the Maximals set up a campfire outside the Axalon to keep watch. Cheetor likes the idea of camping under the stars, but Rattrap grumbles about having to spend the night outside in the spooky jungle. Inspired by Rattrap's complaints, Cheetor decides to tell the group a ghost story...

Long ago, on a planet not unlike Cybertron, the tyrannical Megasavage ruled the stricken planet with an iron fist and armies of mindless Servicons. Only a small resistance cell known only as the Defiance prevented Megasavage from achieving his goal of complete domination; as their numbers dwindled, however, the Servicons forced the rebels deeper and deeper underground, until eventually only three remained: Silverklaw, Botanicus, and Nightshriek. But while digging a tunnel to escape the latest Servicon crackdown, Silverklaw contracted a strange, disfiguring disease that warped his body and damaged his mind. Although Botanicus could not save him from the "morphlings", a grief-stricken Nightshriek swore that their comrade would not die in vain—and, during a flight above ground, hit upon the idea of weaponizing the strange microorganisms against Megasavage and the Servicons.

Cycles of gathering sediment samples and experimentation allowed the pair to create a "bacteria bomb" that could instantly infect and corrupt the Servicons. But with only moments before the Servicons breached their hidden headquarters, Botanicus sacrificed herself to buy the time Nightshriek needed to reach Megasavage's fortress and drop the bomb... only for the tyrant to emerge from the rubble unscathed. After all, it was Megasavage who'd reformatted the morphlings many kilocycles ago... and, as Nightshriek slowly succumbed to the infectious fallout from the blast, Megasavage gloated that Nightshriek now worked for him.

Rattrap grouses at the depressing story, but Rhinox wonders if such a fate could really befall Cybertron someday. Cheetor just laughs: Megatron's a bad guy, but nobody's that evil. When they go home, Cybertron will be there waiting for them, just as they left it... right...?

Featured characters

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

Maximals	Defiance	Others
Rhinox (1) Cheetor (2) Nyx (3) Rattrap (4)	rat (7) Silverklaw (8) Botanicus (9) gorilla (10) cheetah (11) Nightshriek (12) spider (13)	Servicons (5) Megasavage (6)

Quotes

"Hahaha! Foolish creature! How do you think I gained this power in the first place? I learned how to reformat the morphlings countless kilocycles ago. They work for me. And now, you work for me."

—Megasavage

Notes

Continuity notes

• The story kicks off with the crew of the Axalon, sans Dinobot, all waiting for Optimus Primal to return. While the story doesn't explicitly spell out where it's set relative to other developments in the Beast Wars universe, author Nick Marino has clarified that it takes place between the events of issues #14 and #15, which featured Optimus getting abducted by the Vok operative Polar Claw without any of the other Maximals knowing.

Transformers references

• Cheetor's story is, of course, a big ol' reference to the plot of Beast Machines, the sequel to the original Beast Wars television show. The characters take a few good-natured pokes at the show's dark, moody, and sometimes polarizing storylines: Cheetor points out that the planet was cloaked in perpetual night, just as the Beast Machines television show showed the characters almost exclusively conducting their surface operations at night, while Nyx praises the "edgy and cool" adventures they must've had.
  • Botanicus, Silverklaw, and Nightshriek are all obvious stand-ins for Botanica, Silverbolt, and Nightscream, who joined the main cast partway into the show's run. Former members of the team include a gorilla, a rat, a cheetah, and a spider, in reference to the four Beast Wars characters who kickstarted the Maximal resistance: Optimus, Cheetor, Rattrap, and Blackarachnia.
  • Megasavage, hardwired into the planet itself, resembles Megatron's control harness from the cartoon's first season, while his mindless Servicon followers evoke Megatron's Vehicon minions, particularly the Cycle Drones.
  • What exactly the Defiance are fighting for isn't exactly made clear in the story itself, but their headquarters is overgrown with green vines and moss, perhaps in reference to the cartoon's famous nature-versus-technology conflict. The eponymous morphlings, on the other hand, don't really correspond to any development in the cartoon, but both the Maximals and Vehicons did experiment with family-friendly forms of biological warfare in the episodes "The Catalyst" and "A Wolf in the Fold".
• Megasavage refers to "kilocycles", a unit of time that originated in Brian Ruckley's Transformers ongoing and has become something of a fixture across IDW's recent works.