Dawn of the Predacus

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« Transformers Timelines #12
Combiner Wars
"Dawn of the Predacus"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published April 7, 2016 (BotCon 2016)
Writers John-Paul Bove
Art Corin Howell
Colors John-Paul Bove
Color assists Ed Pirrie
Letters Chris Mowry
Editor John Barber
Continuity IDW Beast Wars continuity?

At the end of an era, a huge fight ends in disaster for many of our heroes...

Synopsis

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots / Maximals Decepticons / Predacons Others

Quotes

Notes

  • According to the author,[1] this story takes place circa 2035, 30 years after The Transformers: The Movie and 300 years before Beast Wars. It also precedes "Dawn of Future's Past".[2]
  • We're going to remind you now that the Beast Wars cartoon did not establish a definitive in-universe history for itself, merely making it highly plausible that events closely resembling the Sunbow cartoon or the Marvel comic happened offscreen. "Dawn of the Predacus" takes the ever-popular G1-cartoon-as-background route which most Beast Wars tie-ins have utilized.

Continuity notes

  • Ironhide references having been killed by G1 Megatron before.
  • The profile card for Optimus Primal's BotCon 2006 toy stated that he was a veteran of "the last Great War" which resulted in the defeat of the Predacons.
  • The profile card for Razorclaw's BotCon 2009 toy (tying into his appearance in "Dawn of Future's Past") stated that he was doublecrossed and assassinated by the Tripredacus Council. However, see Continuity errors below.
  • Unicron's head is still in orbit of Cybertron following the events of The Transformers: The Movie.
  • The destruction of the moon explains its absence by the time we see Cybertron in Beast Machines.
  • Some trends that would be in evidence in the Beast Wars--Tarantulas's manipulation of Megatron, Waspinator's terrible luck--are seen here for the "first" time.
  • Megatron is seen reading a Covenant of Primus shortly before announcing his name.
  • Many of the characters are not wearing faction symbols. The author has stated that clear factions (especially on the Decepticon side) had fallen down after the events of "The Rebirth" and Autobots and Decepticons at the time of the story do not necessarily correspond to future Maximals and Predacons.
  • Rattrap seems to give Optimus Primal his name here, as a mocking nickname in reference to his resemblance to Optimus Prime and their mission from the Primal Council.

Transformers references

Real-life references

  • Ironhide refers to Megatron as a "knock-off."

Continuity errors

  • The profile card for the "Dawn of Future's Past" version of Generation 1 Razorclaw says that after the defeat of the Decepticons in the Great War, he led the nascent Predacon faction against the Autobots until the Tripredacus Council seemingly assassinated him. In addition, Divebomb appears alive in "Dawn of Future's Past", and the profile card for "Dawn of Future's Past" Laserbeak says that Divebomb recruited Ravage to the Predacons. Here, however, Razorclaw's entire team is killed off by Predacus in the final battle of the Great War before any of that can happen.
  • The stasis pods in this story are labeled with the names of the characters inside, whereas the pods in the show weren't (with the obvious exception of Protoform X). It's possible that this is simply a change that occurred over the next 300 years, but why?
  • The death of Predaking, a being composed of black, yellow, and red mammals and birds, is commemorated with... a purple insect face?

Contentious continuity

To put it very mildly, this story was controversial within the fandom--aside from the admittedly subjective "BW isn't supposed to be all about G1" complaints, many fans perceived it as stomping all over the continuity it was supposed to fit into like, well, a combiner stomping on Waspinator. Some of these issues have their origins in plot points that author John-Paul Bove had in mind but either didn't have time for or didn't realize were unclear, which he has gone on to clarify on his Tumblr. Bove has stated that the story was originally meant to be part of a mini-series set after "The Rebirth," so presumably some or all of these points would have been clearer in that context.

  • This story predates the existence of Maximals and Predacons, and there is no indication that any sort of downsizing has taken place yet, yet the Axalon is already in service, apparently scaled to G1-era Transformers.
    • According to Bove, after the downsizing, G1-scaled ships and buildings were retrofitted to suit smaller inhabitants. In particular, each deck of the Axalon would have been split into several smaller ones, making it a "larger" ship from the Maximals' point of view.
  • Protoforming technology is established as a weapon of war, with stasis pods as a form of life support for its victims. Optimus Primal takes possession of some of these stasis pods (stating that he'll "do what we can for them"), implying that the stasis pods said to contain his Maximal crew on the cartoon are actually a bunch of protoformed Autobots and Decepticons he's been carrying around in his ship for 300 years and that the blank protoform who becomes his new body from "Coming of the Fuzors (Part 2)" onward is actually somebody's corpse.
    • Bove writes that this was only meant to be the beginning of protoform and stasis pod technology, and by the time of the cartoon it would have evolved into the usage the cartoon suggested, with only some of the Axalon's pods being old Autobots and Decepticons (the rest having been restored to their old selves).
  • The sight of Generation 1 Inferno becoming a protoform which is then labeled as (naturally) "Inferno" suggests that his protoform became Beast Wars Inferno. Which wouldn't really be a continuity error, but it would be incredibly stupid.
    • Bove stated at BotCon 2016 that this was was deliberately left open to the reader's interpretation, and that he hasn't ruled out G1 Inferno's return if the story were to be continued.
  • There appears to be at least one of Ravage's transwarp cruiser, which will be "experimental" 300 years later, flying around.
    • Bove explains that it's just a similar design, similar to the various Enterprises.

However, on some points his explanations fall short:

  • Rattrap really shouldn't know Optimus Primal yet. Bove defends this by saying nobody ever said how long they'd been serving together, but while nobody establishes a precise timeframe, "Beast Wars (Part 1)" makes it abundantly clear that Rattrap is new to Primal's command, and on top of that strongly suggests that Primal himself is new to command. There's some wiggle room, but it's hard to argue that there are three centuries of it.
  • Many Maximals and Predacons from the cartoon, plus some who didn't appear in the cartoon, existed concurrently with their legendary "energon guzzler" "ancient ancestors." Bove tries to explain this away by pointing out that most of them aren't seen to interact with any Autobots or Decepticons, but that still puts them in the same time frame as characters who were supposedly part of the distant past.
  • In particular, many participants in the Beast Wars were present for the end of the Great War, with some playing rather prominent roles during the war's end:
    • Beast Wars Megatron seizes a role of authority following Galvatron's demise, bossing Predaking around.
    • Tigatron and Airazor are incredibly important Autobots, to the point that Prowl says that Tigatron is "respected by all sides for his desire for peace," sending him as an emissary to the Decepticons due to his widespread reputation. This echoes his later personality traits when awoken on prehistoric Earth and he would again be sent as an emissary by the Vok... but apparently nobody will make the connection.
  • Airazor ends up in a stasis pod labeled with her name and Tigatron does not, which makes the status quo of "Dawn of Future's Past" difficult to extrapolate. Apparently at some point she was brought back, but without her memories, as "Chromia Pilot 10", and also Tigatron won't recognize her. Which isn't impossible, but wow she has the worst luck.
  • In "The Agenda (Part 1)," the Tripredacus Council talk about having "worked secretly towards the day where we might rise up and take what is rightfully ours", "ever since the Autobots defeated our Decepticon ancestors," but we learn in this story that the Tripredacus Council WERE those Decepticon ancestors and that they defeated themselves, on purpose. Bove's explanation is essentially to separate those two quotes, which makes the first one fit nicely (taking what is rightfully theirs as first-generation Cybertronians, rather than as heirs to the Decepticons) but the second one remains nonsense in light of this story. To be fair, it doesn't really jibe with Tarantulas's claim of having different origins in "Other Victories," either.

Other notes

  • This book was produced by IDW Publishing instead of Fun Publications.
  • Unit-3 is asked to "fill some big shoes" and later becomes a leg (and foot) for Magnaboss. Ahaha. Haha. Ha.

Covers

  • BotCon Edition:
  • Diamond Edition:

References

  1. ↑ https://twitter.com/wordmongerer/status/716433907621736448
  2. ↑ http://wordmongerer.tumblr.com/post/142758963250/this-past-weekend-my-first-transformers-story
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