Cybertron's Most Wanted
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 "Why would you want to save Axiom Nexus?" "Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!" | |||||||||||||
| "Cybertron's Most Wanted" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Fun Publications | ||||||||||||
| First published | June 18, 2015 (BotCon 2015) January 13, 2016 (Diamond Edition) | ||||||||||||
| Writers | Jesse Wittenrich & Pete Sinclair (see Errors) | ||||||||||||
| Pencils | Matt Frank | ||||||||||||
| Inks | Matt Frank | ||||||||||||
| Colors | Thomas Deer with Wade Alexander | ||||||||||||
| Letters | Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Managing editor | Pete Sinclair | ||||||||||||
| Editor in chief | |||||||||||||
| Continuity | TransTech | ||||||||||||
When the Waruders threaten to consume TransTech Cybertron, its most infamous criminals must step up to save the planet.
Synopsis
It is a normal, peaceful day in Axiom Nexus. Mostly. On the run from the law after a botched theft, wanted criminals Battletrap, Stepper, Nebulon, Scalpel, Boombox, Heavyweight, and their leader C-81 lead the local police force on a chase through the offworlder zone. Finding themselves cornered in Seeker-Shinai, C-81 transforms into robot mode and attempts to scatter the crowd of Seekers through intimidation. The sight of a "Megatron" on Axiom Nexus serves only to petrify the crowd, however, and C-81's gang is apprehended by Sergeant Hound and his squad.
The criminals are taken to the offworlder maximum security prison, where Sergeant Hound, Officer Stungun, Commander Cheetor, and General Optimus Prime discuss whether or not C-81 truly could be a "Megatron" who slipped through Axiom Nexus's security. Though the rest of the group is ready to dismiss C-81 simply as a Megatron lookalike, Optimus retains his suspicions.
Meanwhile, C-81's gang first meet Oilmaster and then Packrat within the prison. Though they get off to a rough start, the lot of them soon come to be on somewhat-amicable terms. C-81 reveals to Packrat that their botched theft was the last raid they needed to pull off to assemble their own interuniversal gate, which C-81 plans to use to provide an off-the-books travel agency. The criminals then team up in order to execute an escape plan. Just as Oilmaster's aerial component succeeds in placing a magne-current amplifier on the prison's generator, the power for all of Axiom Nexus goes out, leading the prisoners to believe their plan is going off without a hitch. "Cybertron's most wanted" fight their way through Autorooper and Blastcharge Strika Drone guards and manage to breach the prison's walls, finding the city outside completely depowered. Taking advantage of the cover of darkness, the criminals make their way to the city's underground tunnel network.
Within the prison, General Optimus Prime and Sergeant Hound learn from Cheetor and Stungun that all other TransTechs have been shut down due to a surge in the planet's global net. The General and the Sergeant are tasked with finding the power outage's source and remedying it.
Underground, Burn Out and Lift-Ticket use Spy-Eye to try and track down a nearby Waruder hive, the cause of the planetary shut down. C-81's group bump into them, prompting the Burn Out, Lift-Ticket, and Spy-Eye to flee. Stepper and Battletrap assume that the fleeing "'bots" are off to report their whereabouts to the O.Z.S.A., and so the criminal gang decides to give chase. They soon lose their trail, and find themselves in the middle of the aforementioned Waruder hive. The hostile invaders engage the group. Though the criminals are initially successful and fighting back against the Waruders, the invader leader Zaptrap appears with supplementary soldiers, and forces C-81 and the others to flee. Cybertron's most wanted are soon overtaken, and crash through an unstable floor as more Waruders converge upon them. With several of their members badly damaged, things look grim... But General Optimus Prime and Sergeant Hound, soon followed by Lift-Ticket and Burn Out, arrive to lend a hand. Lift-Ticket explains to Optimus and C-81 that the Waruder hive's venom caused the planetary surge, and that the TransTechs' condition can be reversed if he can collect a sample of this hive's venom. Lift-Ticket is then badly damaged by a Waruder soldier, revealing him to in reality be a mech piloted by the human Cline. This turn of events gives C-81 an idea, and the Decepticon rips Beet-Chit out of Zaptrap. Holding the Waruders' leader hostage, he forces the bug to negotiate with Optimus and himself. The Waruders agree to provide the Cybertronians with a venom sample in exchange for safe passage to an abandoned Cybertron via C-81's interuniversal gate. Though Optimus impounds C-81's gate after the deportation is completed, he allows C-81's group to "slip away" in recompense for their aid in thwarting the Waruder invasion. Sergeant Hound apologizes to Cline and Dia that he can't aid them further in their war against the Waruders due to the TransTechs' non-interference policy. The humans understand and leave the Autobots on good terms.
The General later reports to Starscream, Prowl, and the Convoy, as the TransTechs are slowly recovering. The General tells Starscream and Prowl that the rumors surrounding C-81 were only rumors, assuring them the TransTechs could never mistakenly allow a "Megatron" on-planet. The TransTechs are satisfied, but the rest of the Convoy is savvy to the General's lie. They nonetheless accept to cover up C-81's identity, with Beast Prime stating that if the General trusts C-81, so does the rest of the Convoy.
General Optimus Prime later enjoys some off time with Spy-Eye, looking on as Axiom Nexus returns to normalcy, and contemplating how "everyone has the capacity for change."
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
Quotes
Notes
- Characters mentioned include: Megatrons, TransTech Cryotek, Shockwaves, Ultra Magnuses, Primus, Optimus Primes, Xal, Constructicons, and Insecticons.
- Characters mentioned in General Optimus Prime's profile include: Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Sgt. Hound, Jazz, Strafe, Jetfire, Air Raid, the Convoy, and Cheetor.
- General Optimus Prime's home dimension mostly involves toys either late or outright cancelled from the Generation 2 toyline. Both he and Sgt. Hound are based on unreleased toys redecoed from Auto Rollers Dirtbag and Roadblock. Megatron and Starscream are described as being in their "ATB" toys redecoed from Dreadwing and Smokescreen, which had only a very limited test market release. Jazz and Soundwave are described as being in their cancelled Laser Cycle bodies, redecoed from Road Rocket and Road Pig. And Jetfire, Air Raid, and Strafe are all in their Cyberjet bodies. The Autobots mentioned in this profile are all part of the "Autobot Firestorm Squadron"; the Firestormers were a group of Autobots from the Marvel Generation 2 comic.
- Sector 49G is named for Sector 7G from The Simpsons, squared. (So "G2", get it?)
- Megatron had Destronium missiles; Destronium is a substance seen in Animated episode "Nanosec".
- Prime and his Megatron's final battle took place on Mirtonia. Mirtonia was the home planet of G.I. Joe Lunartix Empire alien Carcass. The planet of Mirtonia is presumably connected to the Mirtonian constellation, mentioned in the tech specs of Generation 2 Laser Optimus Prime.
- Optimus has a Phazon heavy blaster; phazon is a substance from the Metroid video games.
- Characters mentioned in Battletrap's profile include: Shockwave and Megatron.
- The idea that the Duocons were attempts by Shockwave to create Triple Changers comes from Dreamwave Productions' Generation 1 comics...though the Triple Changers' history in that continuity was a bit contradictory and never particularly well explained.
- The Axiom Nexus Cybernet Infocore was previously mentioned in the Transformers I.Q. feature from the Club magazine, itself named for the Cybernet Space Cube from the Generation 2 cartoon and the Cybertron InfoCore from Beast Machines.
- Battletrap's sword is called a "Night-Fire Blade", name for Nightfire Island, an archaeological site where ancient stone arrowheads were found.
- Character's mentioned in Beet-Chit and Zaptrap's profile include: King Waruder, Kuwagatrer, and the Guts Blocker Multiforce team.
- The Warudres receive a faction symbol here, based on the one seen in the Diaclone catalogs.
- Zaptrap is revealed to actually be the Transformers incarnation of the character. Sold in a e-HOBBY three-pack, he was a "redeco" of Shrapnel, based on the original Diaclone Insecter Robot colorscheme. Zaptrap, in particular, was based on Kuwagatrer, who is mentioned in the profile.
- The Cymond cluster was originally mentioned in the Facebook run of Ask Vector Prime.
- The leader of the Waruders, King Waruder, is mentioned, although technically the Waruder leaders is known as "Emperor Waruder".
- Beet-Chit is noted to fear the Guts Blocker Multiforce. Guts Blocker was a 14-component combiner from the Diaclone toyline. During Takara's initial attempts to sell Diaclone in the United States, Guts Blocker was re-released as the Multi-Force 14 Robot in Diakron.
Continuity notes
- This comic takes place in the TransTech universe. Inspired by the aborted Beast Machines sequel line, scrapped in favor of Armada, the "Transcendent" storyline published in the Club magazine and the online prose stories told the story of TransTech; on this Cybertron, the war never escalated to an all out fight between factions, and the Transcendent Technomorphs, or "TransTech" devoted themselves to guarding the multiverse, picking up Cybertronians across the multiverse lost in transwarp. To prep for this, Fun Publications set up three Facebook pages-Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter, Rook - Axiom Nexus News: Investigative Journalist, and Axiom Nexus News Editor-which told the story of Cybertron's most wanted criminals, and gave set up for the Waruder invasion. Additionally, a three-page mini-comic, "Collections", was published on BotCon's Twitter account, which told how Packrat made his way into Axiom Nexus.
- Most of the TransTech concepts seen her came from the "Transcendent" storylines and the prose stories, including: the idea that Primes, Megatrons, and any other leaders are banned from entering Axiom Nexus; ID bolts; the bureaucracy involved in returning to one's home universe; the split between the TransTech area of Axiom Nexus and the Offworlder Zone; and the universal stream concept. The specific name for the leader ban, "Dux non Intruitus", came from a post on the Rook - Axiom Nexus News: Investigative Journalist page.
- The Convoy are a group of Primes brought in by the TransTech Optimus to help protect the multiverse. The group was introduced in "Invasion Prologue", where Hero Prime, Ignition Prime, Sentinel Maximus, Leo Prime, and Beast Prime all were shown to be part of the group. Those codenames were given in a post on Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter, where it revealed that Black Convoy and Primal Prime were also members of the group. General Optimus Prime is introduced as a member of the group here.
- Cryotek, who is mentioned several times in the story, previously appeared in the TransTech prose stories.
- Nemesis Prime, also known as Black Convoy, is seen here visually after being mentioned in the aformentioned Andromeda - Axiom Nexus News Reporter post. He is the same Nemesis Prime seen in the "Balancing Act" and "Revelations" storyline, where he was imprisoned by the Autobots after attempting to kill Primus. A few years later, he would receive an Alternity toy, which told how he eventually was inducted into the Alternity, the evolution to the higher-dimensional state healing his warped mind. After the events of "Alternation", most of the former Alternity members returned to their homes...but with no home to go to, it looks like Nemesis has continued to protect the multiverse.
Transformers references
- Aside from the toys available at BotCon 2015, offworlder cameos in this story include:
- Hunt for the Decepticons Decepticon Hailstorm.
- BotCon 2014 exclusive Decepticon Flamewar.
- Alternators Decepticon Decepticharge.
- Reveal the Shield Decepticon Lugnut.
- Generation 1 Autobot Sparkabot Fizzle.
- Classics Mini-Con Overbite.
- BotCon 1998 exclusive Predacon Antagony.
- Robots in Disguise 2015 Autobot Grimlock.
- Micromaster Autobot Clipper, from the Victory anime.
- Beast Wars Transmetal 2 Maximal Ramulus.
- BotCon 2002 exclusive Autobot Tap-Out.
- Beast Wars Neo Maximal Stampy.
- Animated Decepticon Scalpel.
- Generation 1 Decepticon Slugfest.
- Two Windblades, including her Generations "Thrilling 30" toy, and her Legends toy.
- Robots in Disguise 2015 Autobot Strongarm.
- Robots in Disguise 2001 Autobot Prowl.
- Beast Wars Transmetal 2 Maximal Prowl, in the colors of his white-feathered release.
- Cybertron Decepticon Ransack, in the colors of his Galaxy Force "Gasket Police-Type" toy.
- Generation 1 Autobot Monsterbot Doublecross.
- Victory Decepticon Breastforce member Hellbat.
- A group of Blastcharge Strika Drones (the customization class figure from BotCon 2013) and Autoroopers (semi-sentient Transformers employed by the Earth Defense Command from Kiss Players).
- Robots in Disguise 2001 Bruticus, in the body of his Universe 2008 toy, redecoed from Cybertron Scourge.
- Prime: Beast Hunters Predacon Blight.
- Kre-O Straxus and Scrounge, based on their counterparts from the Marvel The Transformers comic.
- Revenge of the Fallen Decepticon Fearswoop, part of the Walmart-exclusive "The Fury of Fearswoop" three-pack.
- Cybertron Decepticon Undermine.
- There are, of course, a lot of Seekers in Seeker-Shinai (all from the Classics Seeker mold), including:
- Henkei! Henkei! Skywarp. The versions of him and Thundercracker are recognizable by the colors of their missile launchers-in this case, Skywarp's are silver.
- Transformers Figure Subscription Service 3.0 exclusive Nacelle.
- 2008 Universe Acid Storm.
- BotCon 2011's Shattered Glass Thundercracker, representing the Generation 1 character in his Action Master colors.
- BotCon 2007 Thundercracker, recognizable by his blue missile launchers with black tips.
- BotCon 2013 Sunstorm, Bitstream, and Hotlink.
- Red Wing, a character from the BotCon 2013 comic "Termination".
- Classics Skywarp, recognizable by his purple missile launcher.
- New faces visually depicted amongst the Convoy include:
- Beast Machines Primal Prime.
- Universe 2003 Nemesis Prime, in his Alternity body.
- On page 1, Starscream is seen walking with TransTech Rattrap, based on his Beast Machines counterpart; this is a reference to their relationship in IDW Publishing's original comic continuity, where Rattrap was depicted as Starscream's chief crony in the pages of the concurrently-running The Transformers and Windblade comics.
- Primal Prime is seen hanging out with Ramulus and Tap-Out; the three were all members of the Wreckers in 3H Productions' The Wreckers comic series.
- Also seen in the offworlder zone on the first page are two Seekers. They're in the Cybertronian "tetrajet" forms from the first Sunbow The Transformers episode, "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1".
- Packrat has a Matrix of Leadership in his stash, specifically based on the "twisted fractal" version seen in the live-action movies Revenge of the Fallen and Dark of the Moon.
- Robots in Disguise Bruticus is seen as a prison guard; he was characterized in his original tech specs as the warden of the Predacons's dungeon.
- During the riot, Kre-O versions of Straxus and Scrounge, original characters from the Marvel The Transformers comic, can be seen; Straxus has removed Scrounge's arm, as their counterparts did in issue #17 of the comic. The two are based off of unused proposals for Kreon toys by Greg Sepelak. Straxus' pick-axe is made from a few building set parts, while his helmet is taken from the Kre-O G.I. Joe range, specifically that of Major Bludd. Scrounge, meanwhile, has the helmet for Kre-O Mirage, place on backwards with his two red eyes painted on, to simulate his odd, wedge-shaped head.
- Scalpel calls the smaller Waruder pilots "the little ones", the prejorative term he used when ordering Scrapmetal ripped apart for use as spare parts in the Revenge of the Fallen film.
- Cybertonium is an element found on Cybertron, vital to the construction and maintenance of Transformer bodies. It was seen in the two-part Sunbow The Transformers episodes, "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 1" and "Part 2".
- Scalpel uses vorns, a unit of time mentioned in issue #17 of the Marvel Comic that is equivalent to 83 Earth years.
- Dia remarks that she "hates quantum;" this was a running gag in the original TransTech prose stories, which itself was likely inspired by a similar running gag in the Discworld novel series.
- Battletrap swears by Xal, an entity mentioned in issue #9 of the Marvel Generation 2 comic.
Diaclone references
- The big thing about this comic is that it's one of the first appearances in Transformers fiction of the Diaclone concept. Diaclone was one of two toylines, along with Micro Change, from which the original The Transformers toylines were sourced. The Waruders, as told in the pack-in fiction sold with the toys, were the main villains of the line, voracious alien insects who invaded Earth. Three of the Waruder toys, the Insecter Robos, were sold in 1985 in America as the Decepticons Shrapnel, Bombshell, and Kickback, the three smaller Insecticons. This combination is evident here, with Beet-Chit's mech, Zaptrap, being based on the Insecticon clone sold by e-HOBBY, itself in the colors of the original Diaclone release. Additionally, Starscream notes in the epilogue how some Insecticons have been emboldened by the Waruder invasion.
- Burn-Out and Lift-Ticket, meanwhile, are based on the Diaclone Car Robos, specifically the toys that would become Autobots Skids and Hoist. Unlike the Transformers, the mechs in the Diaclone toyline were non-sentient, piloted by a small humanoid figure-either a human, or a Waruder.
Real-life references
- The basic concept of the story is obviously inspired by the then-recent 2014 film, Guardians of the Galaxy, where a group of criminals are required to save the day from an invading threat bent on destruction.
- Megatron's alias, C-81, is inspired by professional football player Calvin Johnson, number #81 on the Detroit Lions. He received the nickname "Megatron" from his teammate Roy Williams, which quickly caught on with fans.
- On the first page in the TransTech portion of the city, a large, mechanical, Godzilla-like creature is visible. This is "Dalung Master", a toy created by Leader Shrine that was...oh, how do you say, suspiciously similar to the original The Transformers toy of Grimlock, with organic parts to make him look like the infamous kaiju.
- Battletrap mentions "servo-snails", which, according to Wittenrich, are named after the Silver Snail Comics store in Toronto.
- Seeker-Shinai's name comes from a slightly blunt transliteration of the Chinese word "Shì nèi", meaning "city", in the same vein as Chinatown.
- On page 4, prisoners based on the titular characters from Kamen Rider V3 and Kamen Rider Agito are seen arm-wrestling. Later, on page 9, a prisoner based on the titular character from Kamen Rider Amazon is seen amongst the chaos. Artist Matt Frank previously drew a Cybertronian version of V3 in IDW Publishing's Spotlight: Trailcutter.
- The Blastcharge Strika Drones wield vibro-maces, a type of weapon from Star Wars.
- In a holdover from Sepelak and Troop's outline Zaptrap's and Beet-Chit's speech patterns are inspired by the early synthesized speech clips from arcade games such as Wizard of Wor and Gorf.
Other trivia
- The Primal Prime and Tap-Out on the first page of the story were originally intended to come from Primax 509.28 Epsilon, the Wings Universe, whose Wreckers had last been seen falling into a wormhole anomaly in "Tornado - Decepticon Saboteur". Unfortunately, a coordination error resulted in Primal Prime's original body design being used in this story, necessitating that a tie-in Andromeda Facebook post identify them as hailing from Primax 700.0 Beta, the reality of Primal Prime's Beast Machines toy bio.[1]
- Stampy and Fizzle are hidden by text bubbles in the final comic.
- Since Sgt. Hound doesn't meet Dia and Cline until the end of the comic (and by all appearances they can't transform), he has no weapons of his own to wield. Instead, he's drawn with some of General Optimus Prime's weapons-specifcally, Prime's missile launcher and rifle.
- The Diamond Edition includes profiles for General Optimus Prime, Battletrap, and Zaptrap and Beet-Chit.
Errors
- Though the comic credits the writing to "Greg Sepelak & S. Trent Troop with Jesse Wittenrich", the comic was actually written by Jesse Wittenrich and Pete Sinclair. Only the basic outline of the closing battle and various lines used within it remain from an earlier script written by Sepelak and Troop, whose credit as primary writers was kept in the comic against their wishes.
- The Diamond edition properly credited only Wittenrich and Sinclair.
- Hellbat is colored wrong on page 4; he's purple and teal, instead of blue and gray.
- On page 5, Battletrap calls Packrat Cybertron's "Number Five Mosted Wanted", although that could very well be intentional, given his speech pattern in the comic.
- Blight is colored solid black on page 9.
- In one instance on page 14, Scalpel's dialogue misspells cybertonium as "cybertronium".
Covers
- BotCon Edition: Cybertron's Most Wanted are cornered by the Waruders.
- Diamond Edition: The Convoy observes a holographic display of Cybertron's Most Wanted.
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"There. Y'happy? We're all standing up now. Bunch'a jackasses standing in a circle." -
"What a bunch of a-holes."
