The Truth We Make
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| "The Truth We Make" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Transformers Collectors' Club (online exclusive) | ||||||||||||
| First published | May 9, 2016 | ||||||||||||
| By | Justin Severson | ||||||||||||
| Illustrations by | Paul Vroman and Dan Khanna (cover) | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Jesse Wittenrich | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Of Masters and Mayhem | ||||||||||||
| Page count | 17pp | ||||||||||||
The story of Punch...or is it the story of Counterpunch?
Synopsis
Long ago, before the war, Autobot spy Punch was an actor from Harmonex, the city of the singing crystals-a profession no one has had on Cybertron for years now. Punch reveled in the magic of making characters on a script come to life, becoming them—but then the Decepticons came. Punch was the first to sign up from his city, and before he left, he celebrated with his acting colleagues, promising to be back soon. 27 days later, Harmonex was utterly destroyed by the Decepticons. Flooded with rage, Punch promised to make the Decepticons pay, and in his first engagement, a routine scout patrol encountered the Decepticons. Unfortunately, his whole unit was slaughtered, and Punch was heavily damaged, loosing his mobility. Approached by a a crimson-clad doctor, Punch was told how his transformation cog was special-it allowed him to take on another robot mode. And so, Punch was re-engineered and rebuilt, and on the orders of Autobot High Command, began to play one final role: the Decepticon warrior, Counterpunch. These days, Punch lets his role subsume him, distracting him from the grief, and the feeling that the worse thing to ever happen to Cybertron wasn't the war—but its people.
Or, at least, that's what he believes his past to be.
On the secret Autobot base on Gargoid, Punch is woken from his dreams by a knock on his door. At first, he's afraid that the base has been attacked, but his aggressive comrade, Firecracker, lets the Autobot spy know that the commander wants to see him. Uncharacteristically shaky, Punch makes his way to the commander's office, where the untrusting Suppressor is waiting for him. Suppressor informs the spy that the Autobot's outpost on Athenia, where the potential last hope of the Autobots was being built, was razed by the Decepticons 24 megacycles ago, and that he and Autobot High Command have been investigating how the location was leaked. Punch tells his commander that he hadn't found anything in the Decepticon channels indicating Athenia was compromised, but as it turns out, Suppressor hasn't called him here for that—instead, Suppressor lets Punch know that he doesn't trust him, and that the only reason that he's not yet in the brig is that High Command wishes to let the spy provide an alibi for himself. He then provides Punch with a datapad, showing security footage from Athenia. Punch watches in disbelief as he sees a figure shoot the security officer and input codes to disable the base's defenses...his own figure. Suppressor tells the shocked Punch that the footage is authentic, and that the codes imputed were his specific access codes. Punch tries to protest, telling his commander that he just saw him yesterday—but Suppressor tells him it's been four days. Punch tries to convince him there's some explanation for what has happened, but Suppressor, convinced of the spy's guilt, sends him to the brig.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Autobot? Decepticon? |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
Notes
- Characters mentioned but not seen include: a "crimson-clad doctor," Scorponok, the clan of the six, and Thunder Mayhem
Continuity notes
- Impactor was shown bringing Punch/Counterpunch to Paradron in "Insight". That story also identified the physician who treated Punch/Counterpunch, who is not named in this story, as Lifeline.
Transformers references
- The concept of Counterpunch having his own agenda and working against Punch was first introduced in his Universe profile in issue #71 of the Marvel comics; up until this story, the idea had never been expanded on in fiction.
- Punch claims to have originally lived in Harmonex and references Cybertronians being "constructed cold after the war broke out". Both concepts debuted in the 2005 IDW continuity.
- Three of Counterpunch's rescuers debut in this story as characters based on unmade toys: Crash Test is based on the "GTP Racer" Go-Bot, Rotorbolt is the Diaclone jet-helicopter Triple Changer that Fumes was based on, in the toy's blue colors; and Kill-hexa-switch-deathimal is an unused Decepticon deco for Quickswitch shown in Legacy: The Art of Transformers Packaging. The other two members of the team are G1-continuity imports Wind Sheer and Skyfire, originally from the 2001 Robots in Disguise toyline.
- Killswitch/Hexadeathimal mentions the latter name being given to him by the Clan of Six.
Errors
- Dan Khanna has provided the lineart for the cover, but is uncredited.
- Suppressor's name is misspelt "Supressor" throughout. This was corrected in a later revision.
- On page 10, in Counterpunch's line beginning "“First of all", "that’s doesn’t really" should be "that doesn't really". This was also corrected in a later revision.
Other trivia
External links
- "The Truth We Make" at The Official Transformers Collectors' Club
