Dissolution Part 6: This Machine Kills Fascists

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Lost Light #6 		»
"Dissolution Part 6:
This Machine Kills Fascists"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published June 7, 2017
Cover date May 2017
Written by James Roberts
Art by Jack Lawrence
Colors by Joana Lafuente
Letters by Tom B. Long
Editor Carlos Guzman
Continuity IDW continuity
Chronology Current era

The Autobots' sojourn on Functionist Cybertron comes to an end, but not everyone makes it out alive... while on Necroworld, Anode risks it all to conquer death.

Synopsis

In response to Rung's challenge, the angry Rodimus simply slugs him across the jaw, and Rung crumples like a wet napkin. A scolding from Rewind snaps some sense into Rodimus, and he takes up Rung's mission, ordering everyone else to evacuate while he steers The Cog into Luna 2. Unfortunately, outside, down below, Terminus chooses that moment to open fire on Luna 2 to to save Megatron from its tractor beam, and one of his shots blows The Cog out of the sky!

On Necroworld, Kaput leads Anode, Nautica, and Velocity through the Necrobot's flower fields. Nautica tries to comfort Anode following her recent discovery that her partner Lug was just a time-sickness-inducing hallucination, and returns the bloom of sentio metallico to her. As the group nears its destination, Kaput reveals Lug's fate; she did indeed die on Luna 2 the day the Necrobot took Anode to safety. As was his practice, the Necrobot preserved a small, flickering portion of her spark energy in one of his flowers—a flower Kaput now plucks from the ground and holds out to Anode, offering her a way to say goodbye. Anode looks back and forth between the flower and the sentio metallico bloom... and suddenly bolts off back toward the fortress with both in hand.

Bright astonishment!

Rodimus and his team haul themselves out of the wreckage of The Cog just as Megatron and the rest of his unit come running up. Brainstorm contacts the group via their communicator to warn them they only have twenty minutes to use Luna 2's teleporter to return to Necroworld before Killmaster's teleportational wand runs out of power... but before Rodimus can form a response, he is struck dumb by an awesome sight: over Ratchet's protestations, Rung has tampered with the mass displacement generator the Functionist Council forcibly equipped him with, and has enlarged his robot mode to colossal proportions so he can directly attack Luna 2 with his city-sized fists! Clicker is most taken aback by this development—fearing that Rung's actions are proof that everyone does have a grand role to play—but Megatron assures him it is just the opposite, that choosing your function is the ultimate disproof of the Council's doctrine. Brainstorm tries to get everyone to focus on the problem at hand: they need to destroy Luna 2 to stop the Council, but if they do, they lose the teleporter that will take them home. Roller has a casual brainwave, proposing that they turn Luna 2's teleporter outward, teleporting the whole moon away with them as they leave, back to Necroworld. Rodimus worries about the potential destruction that might cause, but Brainstorm reminds him Necroworld is hollow, and can easily contain the moon! With a plan in place, everyone heads off toward the nearest matter transporter that will take them up to the moon... everyone except Terminus, who tells Megatron he is staying in the Functionist Universe to help continue the fight against the Council. Megatron asks Rodimus for a moment to speak to his friend, but Rodimus is immediately suspicious that he is going to stay behind too in order to evade justice. Megatron gives Rodimus his word that he is not, and Rodimus begrudgingly grants his request.

Back on Necroworld, in the Necrobot's fortress, Anode reveals her plan: to release the trace of Lug's spark energy from the spark-flower into the sentio metallico, which will incubate the spark and which she can then sculpt into a protoform, restoring Lug to life. Anode is unsure if her skills are equal to the task, but she boldly commences the process... and things are going well, until the protoform's temperature starts dropping rapidly...

As Megatron is saying his goodbyes to Terminus, Rodimus's team reaches the matter transporter. Unfortunately, it turns out to be non-functional, so they have to make a run to the next-nearest one, and Roller radios Terminus to update him on the situation. What is said between them is unheard, but afterwards—just as the dead body of the defeated Rung falls out of the sky in front of them—Terminus grabs Megatron's arm and leads him to where he needs to go. Time passes... and Megatron does not arrive at the transporter. Rodimus is incandescent with rage and refuses to leave without him... right up until Minimus Ambus speaks up, agreeing that Megatron should not be allowed to "get away." Reminded of the true source of his anger, Rodimus grits his teeth and orders the transporter activated, teleporting the group to Luna 2.

Here's hoping things go better this time...

Meanwhile, at the site of the original, broken transporter, a confused Megatron cannot understand why the group is not there. As he runs back out to question Terminus, Luna 2 disappears from the sky overhead, teleported back to Necroworld. Megatron cannot believe the others have left him behind, but Terminus tells him they have given him a second chance.

Brainstorm successfully uses Killmaster's wand to return Necroworld to the Autobots' home universe, and Rodimus's team returns from Luna 2 to the planet's surface, reuniting with their friends. Ratchet embraces a confused Rung... Roller admires Anode's new "backpack," the successfully-sculpted protoform Lug... and Brainstorm wonders where Megatron is, leading Rodimus to grind his teeth in fury once again.

Some time later, beneath the surface of Functionist Cybertron, Megatron visits an Anti-Vocationist League unit hidden in the mines of Nova Point, the latest stop on a "speaking tour" as he rallies the organization's scattered cells together. This war, Megatron will fight with words, not violence; under his tutelage, the League will spread truth, and reach out to help those blinded to the evils of Functionism see it for what it is. One day, together, they will all achieve peace—peace through empathy. His speech done, Megatron goes outside, and stares into the night sky with a heavy heart. His reverie is interrupted by the chime of his communicator... and the surprised Megatron cannot stop himself from smiling as, through the speaker, in response to Roller's previous attempts to reach him... crackles the voice of Orion Pax.

Characters in italic text appear only in flashback.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Functionists Others

Quotes

"It's Brainstorm. He says—and I quote: You've got twenty minutes to get your backsides back to Necroworld before Killmaster's miracle stick runs out of super-juice and you're stuck in that nonsense-verse forever."
"What?"
"Please don't make me say that sentence again."

—Minimus Ambus and Rodimus


"I'm telling you, Brainstorm, he's the size of fifty Titans. He— bloody hell, he just punched the moon!"

—Rodimus is awestruck by Kaiju Rung.


"We can't leave until Luna 2's been destroyed! And once it's destroyed, we can't leave! Quid pro quo!"
"Actually, Rodimus, I don't know if that's the correct use of the—"
"Ah-ah-ah! Finger of silence and it's pointing at you."

—Rodimus and Minimus Ambus


"I liked him better when he was useless. We believed in him because there was nothing to believe in. He was a nobody. A glorious nobody. But if even he has a greater purpose—if even he is part of some primal plan... surely we're all part of the plan? And if that's the case, the Functionists were right all along."
"No. The opposite of Functionism isn't lack of function. The opposite of Functionism is choice. It's about doing what you want— regardless of what you were born to do, or what you're told to do, or what society expects you to do. No one can decide how you live your life except you."

—Clicker and Megatron


"If I stayed behind—if I went back on my word—I wouldn't be the person you think I am. And the person you think I am... that's the person I want to be."

—Megatron, to Terminus


"They've gone. They left without me."
"They've given you a second chance."
"They'd already done that."

—Megatron and Terminus


"What did we miss?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. Life and death. Mainly life."
"New backpack?"
"Kind of."

—Roller and Anode

Notes

Continuity notes

  • Velocity offers Anode "something to cope" with the grief of realizing Lug is dead; she's talking about the mood suppressants that issue #3 revealed the rest of the Autobots have been taking to cope with the recent death of Skids. Skids is, of course, the "someone" Nautica refers to having lost, his passing having taken place in More than Meets the Eye #54.
  • Anode and Lug are revealed to have been outside the Raskol Arena when they were attacked by the Cybernought in issue #1. The arena was previously seen in More than Meets the Eye #28-30, in which it played host to Megatron's trial.
  • Lug was killed by forcefield feedback, the exact thing Anode cheerfully said would kill them in a comedy scene in #1. Ouch.
  • Anode is outraged to hear the Necrobot performed a religious ceremony for Lug as she died, since she wasn't religious; as proof, Anode recalls when Lug wore a "Micro-Matrix" on her cheek for one day, and "threw it away because it itched." These symbols of religiosity have previously been seen several times in IDW continuity, first worn by Springarm back in "Chaos Theory," Part 2, and most notably by Skids in various issues of More than Meets the Eye.
  • At the forefront of the crowd of AVL'ers listening to Megatron at the story's end is Glitch, the once and future Tarn of the "main" universe. His powers mean he has still been a victim of empurata in the Functionist Universe, and Megatron's words obviously still speak as strongly to him here as they did in our home reality.
  • Also part of the crowd is a "flathead"—one of the unfortunate Cybertronians who have received a punishment worse than empurata, having had their head replaced with a flatscreen. We previously saw this practice in More than Meets the Eye #35, in which Dominus Ambus was subjected to it. Dominus was identified as a rebel in that issue, so it's logical that he'd be among the AVL, but it's not 100% clear if this is supposed to be him; the colors and shape of this 'bot's body don't match with Dominus's in #35... but at the same time, this guy has two long, flat protrusions coming up over his shoulders and is a dullish grey-green in color, which were attributes of Dominus's true form, as seen in More than Meets the Eye #53.
  • This speech scene takes place in the mines beneath Nova Point, the significance of which should not be lost: this, More than Meets the Eye #28 told us, is where Megatron originally worked—where his story first began, and now, begins again.
  • Though the voice coming out of the communicator is not identified on-panel, we know it's Orion Pax because Roller explained last issue how he had been attempting to contact him.

Transformers references

  • We scarcely need to tell you that "peace through empathy" is an inversion of Megatron's classic motto, "peace through tyranny."

Real life references

  • This issue takes its title from the message musician Woody Guthrie painted on his guitar.
  • As quoted above, Rodimus incorrectly describes the Autobots' situation with the Latin phrase, "quid pro quo," which means to trade one favor for another. Rodimus really wants to be using a term like "catch-22" or "double bind," which refer to unwinnable scenarios in which one requirement for victory contradicts the other.

Errors

  • Kaput is missing the lens on his forehead when he hands the flower to Anode and when he reports the protoform's drop in temperature.
  • Raskol Arena is mis-spelled as Raskol Areana.
  • On page 7, Anode is pictured running in with the group.

Other trivia

  • Originally solicited for release in May, this issue continues IDW's ongoing series of delays and arrives in the first week of June.
  • Lug's full name is given as "Lug of Celestica Tetracornacapria." As this is not a location that's ever been mentioned before, it remains unclear whether she is from Cybertron itself or one of its colonies.
  • As presented in the comic, it's ambiguous whether Terminus chose not to share Roller's information accurately with Megatron, or Roller's having not given Terminus the correct info in the first place. James Roberts would later state, however, that Roller did give the correct coordinates, meaning Terminus told a fib...

Soundtrack

For all of "Dissolution":

For this issue alone:

Covers (4)

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