Out of the One, Many
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| "Out of the One, Many" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Fun Publications | ||||||||||||
| Published in | Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club #65 | ||||||||||||
| Writers | Jesse Wittenrich & Pete Sinclair | ||||||||||||
| Pencils | Eryck Webb | ||||||||||||
| Inks | Eryck Webb | ||||||||||||
| Colors | Evan Gauntt | ||||||||||||
| Letters | Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Managing editor | Pete Sinclair | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Shattered Glass | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | 2015 | ||||||||||||
The rules change.
Synopsis
In a metaphysical realm, Nexus Prime monologues to himself. Long ago, two powerful swords were forged by Solus Prime, blacksmith of the Thirteen. The first was the Terminus Blade; designed to allow the Thirteen to travel from universe to universe to stop primordial Unicron. As their power grew and technology marched on, the sword was tosses aside, left forgotten. The other sword, the Star Saber, was also lost, but not unintentionally. It's power was great, and Megatronus, jealous of it's power, turned on his brothers and sisters. To prevent further conflict, Solus used her Forge to split it into five pieces, with Nexus splitting himself into five components as well, each entrusted with safeguarding a piece, so that it would never be reunited. But when the evil Ultra Magnus of the "Shatteredverse" recovered the Terminus Blade and used it to spread destruction throughout the multiverse, Nexus knew he had to retrieve the Star Saber once more. Having recovered the pieces, Nexus uses the two blades to inoculate the multiverse from further destruction. His brothers and sisters gather around him in the metaphysical plane; some are there to aid him, while others try to stop him. Ultimately, Nexus is successful; after healing the still-living universe touched by the destruction, he begins altering the rules of the multiverse, strengthening the barriers in-between universes. As his alterations go into affect, he begins to feel himself separate; the newly-built walls mean that he and his siblings can no longer exist as singularities, and all of them separate into countless forms, each one with a separate identity for each timeline. Primus and Unicron prove no less immune; the Chaos Bringer howls as his power is diminished, with one iteration, filled with light rather than darkness, finds his way to the Shatteredverse...
...and there, the benevolent Unicron has come across the mortally wounded Optimus Prime, betrayed by his former underling Rodimus. Unicron explains that while other Unicrons seek only entrophy, he seeks extrophy, bringing truth and enlightenment to the cosmos, embracing the individuality of every Cybertronian. Optimus rejects the god's author to sooth his mind of the chaos, believing that Unicron wishes to brainwash him. Unicron decides to seek an alternate route; he proclaims that he has seen Optimus' greatest victory, causing Prime to demand to see how it happens. Unicron offers a brief taste of enlightenment, and Prime, enraptured, accepts his offer. Unicron begins to revive and reformat the Autobots into the Knights of Unicron: Brawn becomes X-Brawn, the champion. Prowl becomes Checkpoint, the guardian, while Inferno and Ratchet become his patrolmen, the Autotroopers. Finally, Optimus Prime is reformatted as well, becoming Nova Prime! His sanity restored, Nova promises Unicron that he will stop Rodimus and the evil Autobots, once and for all. Unicron ensures that he has faith in his new disciple, but senses something else; another light to aid him in the oncoming fight...
Back on Cybertron, Rodimus sits on Prime's former throne room in Iacon, bragging about Prime's defeat. His stories are interrupted, however, when Nova and his knights are teleported in, offering Rodimus one chance to surrender. Recognizing his former leader, Rodimus refuses, and the Autobots engage the knights. Nova takes Rodimus one-on-one; his former underling is disturbed by Nova's new found morality. Nova swiftly defeats Rodimus, using his axe to throw him out of the tower window and into the depths of Cybertron. Rodimus' fall, however, is stopped by a number of spikes; when he finally reaches the ground, the moaning Autobot is confronted by a voice, proclaiming him his new "chosen one". The voice, belonging to a massive face on the wall, explains that he has had a revelation recently. Disgusted by all the so-called "impurities" on his surface, the evil Primus declares that it's high time...for a mass extinction!
Featured characters
Characters in italics appear only in flashback. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| SG Autobots | Others |
|---|---|
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Quotes
Notes
Errors
- It could possibly be chalked up to the Thirteen's transdimensional nature, but Vector Prime appears in the present day in his Cybertron colors despite appearing in his Universe toy colors in the tie-in Ask Vector Prime Facebook page.
- Nexus refers to his "brothers and sisters" despite all known pre-Shroud iterations of the Thirteen having only one female member, Solus. Though given the fact that Nexus is dealing with multiversal chaos, it might not be impossible that more than one member of the Thirteen who has assembled is female.
Continuity notes
- And so, the multiversal singularity versions of the Thirteen, Primus, and Unicron (and any other singularities elsewhere) come to an end. These events were foreshadowed for several months prior to this issue in Ask Vector Prime, as the Guardian of Space and Time felt his memories changing, and ultimately left his position as an Axiom Nexus News columnist to attend to Nexus Prime's calling.
- The Thirteen of the multiverse appear together for arguably the first and the last time. Although thirteen figures are present when Nexus Prime brings the Star Saber and Terminus Blade together, not all are immediately recognizable. (Presumably the Thirteen present coincide with Ask Vector Prime's list of the multiversal Thirteen, also released by Fun Publications.) From left to right:
- A pair of legs resembling Soundblaster, i.e. Logos Prime.
- Orange and blue robot with a face resembling the Autobot insignia. Autonomous Maximus, also known as the Last Autobot.
- Vector Prime.
- The bartender at Maccadam's, who might be Maccadam, who might be Alchemist Prime. Maybe.
- A purple and feminine robot. Coloring is comparable to the hands of Solus Prime holding the Forge two panels above.
- An orange, winged, vaguely bird-like figure. Possibly Onyx Prime.
- Nexus Prime.
- A yellow and blue robot.
- A gray robot reminiscent of the live-action movie version of Prima.
- A blue-purple lion. A Primax incarnation of Alpha Trion once briefly took the form of a purple lion, and the Uniend Alpha Trion is a member of the Aligned Thirteen, whom Vector Prime once mentioned as having begun to merge with their Multiversal Thirteen counterparts prior to the events of this comic, so it could be a Thirteen/lion version of ol' A3.
- A green and spiky robot with a Generation 1 Megatron-style helmet. Possibly Liege Maximo.
- A yellow and black robot, with a beard and a spiked helmet. Maybe Solomus.
- The Fallen.
Transformers references
- "Another Light" continues to put a "Shattered" spin on The Transformers: The Movie. The scene of Shattered Glass Optimus Prime and his troops being healed and reformatted by Unicron is a mirrorverse version of the scene of Generation 1 Megatron and his troops in, with bad guys being turned into good guys instead of bad guys being healed to do more bad. The story foregoes a coronation scene for Rodimus, but he still plays the part of Starscream addressing his assembled troops from a dais, and gets to paraphrase some of the Seeker's movie dialogue when Nova appears. Rodimus's fall into Cybertron also riffs on his plunge through Unicron's interior in the final act of the film, with wall-spikes breaking his fall.
- Checkpoint is based on Energon Checkpoint, and X-Brawn on Robots in Disguise X-Brawn. Autotroopers have appeared in several franchises, but have their roots in the Kiss Players Autoroopers. Optimus is reformatted into Nova Prime, also the name of an ancient Transformer, just as Megatron was reformatted into Galvatron, a name used later by Nova Prime's contemporary.
- One of the many splintering Unicrons features his Energon color scheme.
Real-world references
- The chapter's title is probably a reference to the Latin phrase "E pluribus unum", a motto of the United States of America which is traditionally translated as "out of many, one".
Other trivia
- So, turns out the 2015 Timelines Nova Prime figure is actually Shattered Glass Optimus Prime! Or is also SG Optimus Prime, depending on how you want to look at it.
- Nova Prime's new companions, meanwhile, have designs based on Combiner Wars figures. Checkpoint uses the Offroad mold, with what looks to be the head of the Trailbreaker retool. His Autotroopers share that mold, and sport what is very clearly a Hoist head. Given Hasbro's M.O. of late, it seems reasonable to assume that this might be a "pretooled" alternate head associated with the new Trailbreaker parts. X-Brawn sports the Rook mold, with a mouthplated head bearing some resemblance to Brawl. Another pretooled alternate head? Maybe!
