Balancing Act, Part 2
| |||||||||||||
| "Balancing Act, Part 2" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | Fun Publications | ||||||||||||
| Published in | Hasbro Transformers Collectors' Club #3 | ||||||||||||
| Story | Forest Lee, Dan Khanna | ||||||||||||
| Writer | Forest Lee | ||||||||||||
| Pencils | Dan Khanna | ||||||||||||
| Inks | Terry Pallot, Chuck Gibson | ||||||||||||
| Colors | Espen Grundetjern | ||||||||||||
| Letters | Junemoon Studio | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Cybertron cartoon | ||||||||||||
Vector Prime and Sentinel Maximus deal with the fallout of their battle, as more travelers from different places and times enter the fray...
Synopsis
Vector Prime places Alpha Trion, heavily damaged but still alive, into a repair chamber. As Sentinel Maximus is being repaired by a drone, he inquires about the two heralds that attacked. Prime explains that Nemesis Prime is a clone of an Optimus Prime from a dimension long since destroyed, tortured and corrupted by Unicron until even the tiniest sliver of Primus's essence had turned rotten. Ramjet, meanwhile, was thought to be lost and stuck in between dimensions; Something's changed him while he was there and now Vector is not sure if even he can equal Ramjet's power. He believes Ramjet is here to free his master and intends to protect the Energon needed to revive Unicron. But with the search for the Cyber Planet Keys limiting his power, Vector Prime had Alpha Trion summon Sentinel Maximus to provide additional help. Sentinel promises not to let the two heralds catch them off-guard again, but Vector explains that while Unicron is dead hisessence is still strong, and could be able to use the same anomalies that brought Sentinel here to his advantage. Elsewhere a portal opens as the half-dead Dark Scorponok emerges, hungry....
Later, a ship lands at Iacon Spaceport. Its sole occupant, Skyfall, searches around, grumbling that he came all the way from Speed to get some answers, yet no-one's home. He soon meets some stragglers-a group of Scrapmetals, who surround him. As he tries to reason with the beasts, an explosion throws him back and destroys the Scrapmetals, as Dark Scorponok demands his spark!
Meanwhile, having slain some unfortunate bots and enslaving some more Scrapmetals, Nemesis demands to know Ramjet's true plan. Ramjet acknowledges that while Unicron may be dead he still exists as long as there is evil. Unicron's physical form limits himself to one universe at the time, while Cybertron, being the stable axis of the multiverse, exist everywhere at the same time. Now, with only his essence remaining, he can destroy everything everywhere at once; using the Dead Matrix and the anomalies from the black hole, they can kill Primus in this universe and replace him with the black hole which will bleed over to other universes until eventually it becomes the new center of the multiverse!
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
|
|
|
Notes
Characters mentioned who do not appear: Unicron and Primus.
Continuity notes
- Vector Prime tells Sentinel Maximus that Unicron plucked the materials for Nemesis Prime from "a dimension destroyed ages ago", implying that Unicron consumed that reality, although later fiction would amend this idea.
- It's never stated where Dark Scorponok came from, but given how his toy bio describes his death at Megatron's hands, he's presumably been plucked from the Dreamwave Unicron Trilogy reality, after his death in Energon issue #30.
Transformers references
- The repair drone fixing Sentinel Maximus shares some of its design elements with the Combat Deck of Generation 1 Optimus Prime.
- The Optimus Prime seen in flashback has body parts that are based on those from other Optimuses. His helmet is from Beast Wars Neo Big Convoy, his face is from Beast Wars Optimus Primal's original body, his torso is from Cybertron Optimus Prime, and his hips are from Masterpiece Optimus Prime.
- Dark Scorponok is, of course, based on his new Cybertron toy.
Errors
- On page two, Vector's line "You should know..." is missing ellipses.
- The Scrapmetals are colored like their red Cybertron toy, but their legs have been miscolored brown.
