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
Nexus Prime has succeeded in reuniting the shattered Star Saber at long last. Now, his brothers and sisters of the Thirteen are drawn from all across space and time to witness as he unites the sword with the Terminus Blade in order to thicken the walls of the multiverse, inhibiting travel between universal streams to prevent further damage being done by interdimensional voyagers. As a consequence, the Thirteen cease to exist as multiversal singularities, splintered into individual incarnations across the dimensions. So too does the same fate befall Primus and Unicron... and amongst the infinite fragments of Unicron, there is one incarnation that embodies the minute spark of good that once dwelled within the planet-eater...
In the Shatteredverse, the gravely wounded Optimus Prime and his men—thrown from Sky Lynx by his treacherous lieutenant Rodimus on the return journey to Cybertron—are approached by this good incarnation of Unicron. The god of extropy offers Optimus enlightenment and a mind freed from chaos, but the Autobot leader initially refuses until Unicron tells him that he has foreseen his greatest victory. Shown a vision of this future triumph, Optimus immediately agrees to Unicron's terms, and he and his men are reformatted by Unicron's power. Optimus becomes Nova Prime, Brawn becomes X-Brawn; Prowl becomes Checkpoint, and Inferno and Ratchet become Autotroopers. Unicron sends Nova and his "Knights of Unicron" to Cybertron to stop Rodimus before he can inflict any more damage.
On Cybertron, Rodimus is gleefully recounting his betrayal of Optimus when Nova Prime and the Knights materialize in the middle of the throne room. Nova offers Rodimus a chance to surrender, but the young upstart won't hear it; as the Knights keep the Autobots busy, Nova engages Rodimus in battle, and quickly sends him crashing through a window. Rodimus plummets into a chasm far below, and is believed dead... but in reality, his fall is broken by a series of spikes extruding from the chasm walls. Now deep below the planet's surface, Rodimus discovers that his survival, and his guided descent into the world's depths, has been orchestrated by an evil incarnation of Primus, who has chosen him to eradicate all the Transformers scurrying around on his body!
Featured characters
(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.
- One of the many splintering Unicrons features his color scheme from the Energon cartoon and toyline.
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!
