Our Darkest

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It is being brought.
It is being brought.
Oh, he's doin' somethin'...

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« Transformers: Unicron #0 »
"Our Darkest"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published May 5, 2018
Cover date May 2018
Written by John Barber
Art by Alex Milne
Colors by Sebastian Cheng
Letters by Tom B. Long
Editor David Mariotte
Continuity IDW Generation 1 continuity
Chronology Current era

The Transformers come the aid of Elonia when Unicron attacks.

Synopsis

From across the cosmos, reports reach Cybertron of a colossal, planet-sized entity roaming the spaceways, consuming other worlds. One by one, planets that are home to both Shockwave's Regenesis ores and Cybertron's colonies fall; first the time-tossed LV-117, then the dead worlds of Gorlam Prime and Prion's colony, then the planet of speed, Velocitron, each physically adding to the monster's mass as it devours them. The Transformers are able to deduce that this entity has been summoned by two transmissions recently sent by Cybertron itself into deep space, the second of which identified the planet-eating monster as "Unicron." And Unicron is not finished dining; now, it appears in the skies over Elonia, home of the Solstar Order. Optimus Prime leads a team aboard the Ark-Zero, the only vessel fast enough to get there in time, in a desperate bid to save the planet's population...

Prime's team are met by Rom the Space Knight, and Prime explains the situation to him. With no idea what Unicron is or why it's doing what it's doing, stopping it seems impossible, but Wheeljack has an alternative: a massive, planet-wide space bridge to teleport the entire population of Eloinia off-world to safety. Rom appreciates the offer, but he and the Space Knights think they can deal with Unicron, and head out to "confront" it. While Rom and Livia skim Unicron's surface, discovering it littered with the remains of dead Transformers absorbed along with Velocitron, the rest of their team flies straight into Unicron's maw... only into be immediately destroyed when a blast of energy emerges from it. Rom and Livia are caught in the blast and hurled down to Elonia's surface.

The Transformers teleport down to Elonia and begin setting up space bridge pylons in strategic locations around the planet. As they work, Bumblebee befriends an Elonian boy and his pet. Before long, everything is ready to go... but when Wheeljack flips the switch, nothing happens! Soundwave deduces that a counter-signal is blocking the activation of the space bridge, the source of which Optimus Prime and Arcee discover when they go the spot where Rom fell: it is an ancient Cybertronian Titan named Emissary, who has lain for millions of years beneath the Thrail Mineral Mine, source of the metal used to create the Space Knights' armor. Examining the substance, Optimus realizes that it is another of Shockwave's Regenesis ores, confirming that Elonia is being targeted by Unicron because it is another of the thirteen lost "colonies" of Cybertron.

Wheeljack sees no option put to teleport back to the Ark-Zero before the planet is destroyed, but Bumblebee refuses to leave the Elonians to die, and Wheeljack is justly shamed. Fortunately, Arcee has a "solution"—she buries her swords in Emissary's brain, killing him, causing the counter-signal he is generating to cease.


(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Solstar Order Others

Quotes

Notes

Continuity notes

  • Chronologically, this issue occurs at a point further into the future than other IDW comic books had reached at the time of its publication (in the same month as Optimus Prime #19). Though it's hardly a shocker, this means it revealed Bumblebee's return to life a few months in advance of the story in which that event took place.
  • The Elonia child's pet is a purple porcine Elonian animal we've seen before; Stardrive had a plush toy of one in Shining Armor #1, and a dead one was glimpsed in Optimus Prime #18.
  • Speaking of Shining Armor, Bumblebee mentions that he's "happy to see [Rom] again," having met him in that mini-series.
  • Optimus and Arcee use an orbital jump to get from Ark-Zero to Elonia, a form of short-range teleportation from an orbiting craft to a planet's surface introduced waaay back at the start of IDW continuity. But, see "Errors," below.
  • Emissary was revealed to have crashed on prehistoric Elonia in Optimus Prime #17.
  • The Thrail Mineral Mine was introduced in the 2017 ROM annual. It's previously been strongly implied that the ore found there was one of Shockwave's Regenesis ores; this issue confirms it, identifying the ore as Ore-12. Optimus observes the ore's "hexagonal lattice"; this has previously been described as a feature of Solus Prime's Creation Lathe in The Transformers #46, suggesting it is a common feature of Cybertronian metal, or at least ancient and powerful ones.
  • The first signal was sent to Unicron in First Strike #6, which was the story that introduced the planet-eater into IDW continuity. The second signal was the flare of healing Talisman energy released in Transformers vs. Visionaries #5; not that there was any indication in that story that any signal was being sent, but it's clarified in the recap section at the back of this issue (see "Other trivia," below).
  • The destruction of LV-117 took place in Robots in Disguise #10. The visuals of the planet's destruction strongly suggested Unicron at the time, years before his formal introduction.
  • The dead colony of Prion was introduced in The Transformers #57.
  • A little strange to hear that Gorlam Prime has been consumed, given that, when we last saw it in Robots in Disguise #19 (when Optimus rose the Titan he speaks of here), it collapsed into a portal into the Dead Universe. Maybe Unicron ate the portal?
  • It's been unclear for some time now exactly what the relationship between the planets Shockwave chose for his thirteen Regenesis ores (explained in Robots in Disguise #34 to be the final resting places of the Thirteen Primes) and the thirteen colony worlds of Cybertron (one for each Prime, founded by a Titan connected with that Prime). We'd initially assumed that they were not necessarily the the same group of thirteen planets, since multiple ore worlds had no colonies, multiple colony worlds had no ores, and multiple Primes either died or never left Cybertron, and so could not have been lain to rest on those worlds. Well, with the explicit identification of Elonia as one of the thirteen Regenesis planets and one of the thirteen "colony Titan" worlds, and the mentioning of other colonies (Velocitron, Eukaris, Prion) and Regenesis worlds (Gorlam Prime, LV-117) in the same breath, it looks like that's been soft-retconned; they are the same thirteen planets, and the worlds are not the resting places of the Primes, just connected with them. This would indicate that the colony worlds we've seen have (or had) ores of their own we never saw, which seems massively coincidental, until you remember that this is aaaaall being pinpoint-precisely executed as an ontological paradox by the time-travelling Shockwave. Further, this implies: 1) that the Necrotitan was the colony Titan of Gorlam Prime; 2) that the biomechanical transhuman civilization that existed on Gorlam Prime may therefore have been in Cybertronian origin; and 3) that it's even possible the Ardurian rocs of the Regenesis world of Arduria and the shapeshifting natives of LV-117 have similar Cybertronians connections. The rocs were even called "cousins" of Cybertronians back in Robots in Disguise #6! We know we say this a lot, but... John friggin' Barber, man.

Transformers references

  • The title of this story is, of course, a reference to the Transformers' "darkest hour," part of the prophecy surrounding the Matrix of Leadership and connected with the coming of Unicron, introduced in The Transformers: The Movie.
  • Like Optimus, Soundwave, Windblade, and Starscream before him, Bumblebee's return to life has seen him redesigned into his "evergreen" character design.
  • In addition to Cliffjumper and Override, a Transformer based on the Energon version of Hot Shot appears among the dead Velocitronians. But we know this is just a generic, because the real Hot Shot lives on Caminus!
  • As Unicron opens fire on Elonia, Bumblebee despairs: "Oh Primus... what are we gonna do now?"—a, ahem, sanitized version of Spike Witwicky's infamous reaction to Unicron The Transformers: The Movie, "Oh shit, what are we gonna do now?"
  • Bumblebee introduces the Transformers to the Elonian child as "rescue bots."
  • During Unicron's attack on the planet, the other Eukarian Transforner seen in addition to established Eukarian tribe leaders Cheetor and Manta Ray is the owl known as "Prowl II." That's probably not his name in this continuity... and a robot based on him had also previously appeared as a Cybertronian member of Mayhem in Sins of the Wreckers #5, but it... uh, well, it hardly matters now, does it?

Real-life references

Errors

  • Optimus calls the teleport jump he and Arcee take down to Elonia an "orbital bounce," but he should be calling it an "orbital jump." A "bounce" is when one teleports up from the surface, to the orbiting craft, then is beamed back down to another location right away.

Other notes

  • This issue was released on Free Comic Book Day. It includes the 16-page main story, summarized above, and numerous additional pieces of backmatter, including:
    • A letter from IDW associate edito David Mariotte, describing how Transformers: Unicron;; marks the end of the current IDW Transformers universe.
    • The announcement image for the series by Sara Pitre-Durocher shown at San Diego Comic Con 2017, in print for the first time.
    • Preview images for Alex Milne and Andrew Griffith's covers to issue #1 and Casey Coller's cover to issue #2, and layouts James Raiz's six interlocking covers for the whole series.
    • A reprint of the double-page spread of Unicron's first appearance from First Strike #6.
    • "The Writers Guide to Unicron #0" by John Barber, summarizing the events leading up to the series. In the process, it gives away a few aspects of Shockwave's scheme over in Optimus Prime that hadn't been entirely explained at the time of publication.
    • A "Read More About..." section offering an overview of the IDW Transformers library of graphic novels.

Covers

  • Regular cover: Starscream, Arcee, Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, and Windblade stare up at Unicron, by Sara Pitre-Durocher; Starscream and Arcee are hidden by a white box commonly added to Free Comic Book Day comics where stores can stamp their name.

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