The War Within issue 4
Writer: Simon Furman
Pencils: Don Figueroa
Inks: Elaine To
Lettering: Dreamer Design
Colors: Rob Ruffolo
Colors: Alan Wang
- Preceded by: The War Within, Part 3
- Followed by: The War Within, Part 5
- Release date: January 8, 2003
- Characters (in order of appearance): Optimus, Starscream, Shockwave, Motormaster, Megatron, Grimlock, Kup
- Chronology: Early War
Synopsis
After falling several (thousand?) feet down the chasm, Prime lies unconscious. When he's awakened by a magical disembodied voice telling him about Cybertron, he wonders whatever happened to Megatron. Prime makes another attempt at looking within himself again, when Megatron arrives onto the scene. Megatron attacks, hoping to get Prime to surrender his Matrix.
Over the remains of the Forum Of Enlightenment, Grimlock meets up with his running crew and begins to explain how the idea is to let the Decepticons conquer Iacon while the Autobot army scatters, taking out Decepticons who expect the Autobots to be too busy defending their capital. Meanwhile, Grimlock's crew use lines to go downwards, where Optimus was last seen.
In Megatron's absence, Starscream takes his throne at Kaon. The takeover doesn't sit right with Shockwave who is too busy leading the Decepticon army against several Gaurdian robots to object to the change in leadership.
Taking information from Laserbeak, Starscream verifies Megatron's belief about Cybertron having a deeper geography. However Starscream plans to use this hidden aspect of Cybertron in a radically different manner than Megatron intended.
Megatron beats around Optimus, explaining how he needs The Matrix as a component to his "Make Cybertron into mobile dreadnought" plan. Prime isn't such a fan of the idea. The two battle (in a familar manner), and Megatron gains the upper hand, reaching into Prime to seize The Matrix.
When the light fades, Optimus and Megatron fight themselves somewhere different.
Quotes
Megatron:
- "Shee-ah!
- Too much, I can't--
- No! this is madness. where...."
Optimus Prime:
- "...Are we?"
Items of note
- Coloring errors:
- Motormaster is brown instead of grey
- Runabout and Runamuck are green instead of black and white.
- Brawl, Blitzwing, and Onslaught are miscolored in the attack on Iacon.
- A massive, miscolored Broadside stands next to a... female Autobot?
- Topspin appears in Salt-Man Z's colors. But the Salt-Man toy uses Twin Twist's mold. A for Effort.
- Optimus and Megatron's battle borrows a moment from the scene in The Transformers: The Movie when Hot Rod battles Galvatron.
- Optimus has Elita One bobble-head and mud-flaps.
- This issue contains advertisements for:
- The War Within, Part 5
- Titan Books collections.
- Transformers posters
- Generation 1: Volume 2
