Tales of the Fallen issue 4

« Transformers: Tales of the Fallen #4 »
"No, no, no! String section, you've got the tempo all wrong! Pay attention to the cues!"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	November 25, 2009
Cover date	November 2009
Written by	Simon Furman
Pencils by	Carlos Magno
Colors by	Josh Perez
Letters by	Chris Mowry
Editor	Andy Schmidt
Assistant editor	Carlos Guzman
Associate editor	Denton J. Tipton
Continuity	Movie continuity

The Fallen betrays his brothers. Basically, it's the same story as last issue.

Synopsis

A long time ago, the one who would become The Fallen began to hear the AllSpark speak to him. It anointed him its chosen one, granted him an armada of lesser Transformers, and sent him abroad to find suns for harvesting... all while forbidding him to speak of this to his brother Primes, telling him that one day he would need to stand alone.

That time came when the Primes met and came to the conclusion that while Cybertron's growth was requiring more energy than they had and they needed to harvest yet more suns, they must be "judicious" and avoid harvesting suns that were supporting other lifeforms. The not-yet-Fallen broke in to snarl that, as the children of Primus and servants of the AllSpark, it was their divine right to simply take the energy the All Spark required. One Prime, however, demanded that they take an oath not to harm other lifeforms.

The almost-Fallen, obviously, ignored this and harvested the first system Jetfire found. Jetfire took the blame for the carnage caused and it was decreed that, in the future, a full congress of the Dynasty must meet before the star harvester is used. The about-to-be-Fallen ignored this, too and found his own world (an inhabited one) and built his own harvester, deciding the others were unworthy and he would show his devotion to the All Spark. Unfortunately for him, the Matrix he'd built for this job didn't work very well: he was consumed by primal fires and emerged as a burning, insane figure that blamed the Dynasty for driving him to this and swore they would pay!

Burnsauce!

The Dynasty, aware he'd done this, cast him out and declared him... Fallen.

The Fallen made an act of contrition and pretended to accept their judgement, then began to tear his way through the galaxy, ravaging inhabited worlds, assimilating any advances in science and methods of warfare he found, and coming to believe himself beyond the All Spark. Once he was prepared and armed, he called the Dynasty from Earth claiming he'd totally found an uninhabited world, and they should come down to harvest its sun, intending to slaughter them and take the Matrix once they arrived. They could face him or stay in limbo, but either way he wins!

Jetfire tried to stop him and was cast out, but the Dynasty arrived in full force. While they waffled at him to explain himself, the Fallen drew out two of the weapons he'd collected on his travels and began to massacre his way through his brothers. Only one, the Prime who had demanded the oath, remained alive, and he began to flee across the planet in multiple teleportation bursts. The Fallen followed... not knowing the Prime had, during the jumps, been gathering the sum total of all of the Dynasty's lifeforce, and once the Fallen had run his energies down he banished the monster into his sarcophagus!

The Fallen swore he would have... revenge!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Decepticons	Others
Jetfire (3) Scrapper (4) Long Haul (5) Rampage (6) Overload (7)	The Fallen (1) Dynasty of Primes (2) Optimus Prime's ancestor

Quotes

"We are the Children of Primus, the inheritors of universal spoils. We are neither bound by morality nor burdened by accountability. We simply serve the will of the AllSpark, and the will of the AllSpark... is to feed its transformation!"

—The Fallen

""Show of force"? That, my brothers, was mere preamble, an overture... to a concerto of carnage!"

—Also the Fallen

Errors

• None of the members of the Dynasty of Primes, save The Fallen himself, resemble the designs for them seen in the live-action film.
• The first time the "last" Prime is shown, his head sculpt resembles Generation 1 Optimus Prime's helmet. However, for the remaning of the comic he is drawn with a head sculpt resembling Movie Prime's protoform toy head.
• The Fallen is cast out and disavowed. Yet on the very next page, the Fallen is still part of and working with the Dynasty.
• In the battle, the Fallen kills more than five other Primes... except last issue, the issue this ties into, clearly showed there were only seven! Whoops!

Items of note

• Chronologically, this is the earliest movie-verse story so far.
• This issue ties into the previous one. Jetfire's confrontation of the Fallen is shown from new angles here.
• IDW is the only fiction to have the Fallen as breaking away from the Primes before Earth and setting up a trap on that planet.
• If we take the first page as literal, the AllSpark is both semi-sentient and evil. If we assume the Fallen is an unreliable narrator, he was delusional bordering on insane from an early age.
• The Fallen claims that they are "Children of Primus". This is the first reference to Primus as opposed to the All Spark in movie fiction, though Furman had previously suggested this over in a Titan character profile.
• The surviving Prime's design is clearly based on Optimus Prime's protoform toy. Which makes it somewhat fitting that he is the one that actually proposes to the Dynasty the "do not destroy the suns from systems with life" rule and names the Fallen, the Fallen.
• This story clearly establishes the Fallen as the member of the Dynasty responsible for finding new suns to recharge the AllSpark. It also implies that the Dynasty of Primes has previously sacrificed worlds with life, and decrees the rule as a means of atonement for their past actions.
• Jetfire and the Constructicons have colours here, unlike the preceding issue.
• Originally, the last Prime - meant to be Optimus Prime's ancestor - went unnamed. It was later retconned that this dude is a version of Prima.

Covers (3)

• Cover A: The Fallen; art and colors by Alex Milne
• Cover B: The Fallen and some crazy shit behind him; art by Carlos Magno and colors by Moose Baumann. This cover can combine with #3's cover B to form a bigger picture.
• Cover RI: Title-free version of cover A

• 
  Think he would sub for Steve Jablonsky?
• 
  New meaning to "death glare".
• 
  He's no Music Man...

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• TBA