Tales of the Fallen issue 3
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 "Well, I wasn't going to say 'during the war'. *pause* During the military conflict from 1939 to 1945..." | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | October 21, 2009 | ||||||||||||
| Cover date | October 2009 | ||||||||||||
| Written by | Chris Mowry | ||||||||||||
| Pencils by | Carlos Magno | ||||||||||||
| Colors by | Moose Baumann | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Chris Mowry | ||||||||||||
| Editor | Andy Schmidt | ||||||||||||
| Assistant editor | Carlos Guzman | ||||||||||||
| Associate editor | Denton J. Tipton | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | Movie continuity | ||||||||||||
Jetfire works for The Fallen. No, really!
Synopsis
In the distant past, the Seeker Jetfire serves directly under the Prime who would become The Fallen, finding for him various stars to harvest; he believes he is serving the Dynasty of Primes as a whole and harvesting non-living systems, not realising he has been conned by his master into killing a living world.
Reporting back to the not-yet-Fallen, Jetfire is surprised to find his master has already located a new world. When he questions this, his master is impressed that he dares seek answers from a Prime, and decides to let him in on the truth: the rest of the Dynasty has betrayed Cybertron, and are leading it to extinction! Thus, it has become still-not-yet-Fallen's duty to take control and save the planet from this fate! Confused by all this, Jetfire is taken to the Chamber of the Dynasty of Primes, home of seven sarcophagi from which the Dynasty communicate; he soon becomes more confused when six of the Primes state that he'd committed a heinous act that had to be punished!
The almost-Fallen defends both his Seeker and his actions, causing the Dynasty to warp into the chamber to ask about this nonsense he was speaking. While they remain adamant that a grave sin had been committed by killing a living planet, he asks how this sacrifice could matter now after they'd gained so much valuable energy for Cybertron? The other Primes are having none of it, however, and the about-to-be-Fallen's arguments that this gained them power far more quickly fall on deaf ears; one of them makes it clear that the whole Dynasty will have to be in congress before the Star Harvester can be used again, and there will be severe consequences if he repeats this "mistake". The from-the-next-page-he's-Fallen assures them there'd be no more mistakes...
Jetfire leaves the meeting confused: his master had explored that last planet and there'd been no life on it... had there? He was told a mistake had been made, but the important thing is that the Dynasty were allowing Cybertron to die; that they wish to take power; that someone had to stop them. And that someone was the Fallen, and his hand-picked army of construction drones... the Decepticons! Jetfire is left confused by this new name, but is informed that this group is the future of Cybertron... and there's a place in it for him...
Despite his doubts, Jetfire joins the Decepticons and follows them to a desert on a small blue planet to build another star harvester. His doubts flare up when Long Haul finds primitive life was on this planet... and the Fallen does not care. Jetfire is shocked and finally breaks rank, ordering Long Haul to cease work on the harvester. He then pleads with the Fallen that they can't harvest another living world... but since the Fallen had just killed one of the primitives for the hell of it, you can guess how that went. All the Fallen wants is for the other Primes to come to this world so he can kill them all, or remain in limbo for eternity. Either way, he wins. Jetfire declares he'll stop him, only to get easily swatted down and left to be killed by the Constructicons...
But the Primes arrive, just as the Fallen wanted. Before engaging in battle, he warps Jetfire and his minions away, and the Seeker finds himself under attack. Determined to reach the harvester and stop it, he begins tearing through the drones: even wounded, he has power and abilities beyond them! One by one, he dispatches the drones until only Mixmaster remains standing. Unfortunately for Jetfire, Mixmaster gets the drop on him, and the only way to avoid being crushed is to teleport into the planet's atmosphere and let re-entry finish him off. Unfortunately, as Jetfire is paralyzed and unable to fly, the stunt dooms him as well.
Thousands of years later, Jetfire wakes in a desert. Confused, he wanders it until a spy plane crashes into him. He takes on its form, and the rest is history...
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
- TBD
Notes
Continuity notes
- The sarcophagi from Defiance turn up, with the Primes living inside them.
- This is the first ROTF fiction to say that the Fallen planned in advance to kill off his brothers on Earth.
Errors
- Obviously, this origin clashes a bit with the "Jetfire was sent by The Fallen to look for the Matrix and fell asleep" origin in the film. (And he can't know anything about the Tomb of the Primes or the Dynasty's battle against the Fallen, since here he never sees any of it.)
- The Fallen is the only Prime to land on Earth and set up the harvester, instead of all of them. Fun with early script drafts!
- There are only six other Primes now, despite there being twelve others in Defiance and the comic adaptation. This brings it in line with the film, which only had Seven Primes, except the DVD's bio for the Fallen claims there were thirteen Primes and ARRRRRRRRGGGGGGG.
- The Constructicons all go unnamed here, and are referred to as "construction drones". They also all die. So the Constructicons in the film and later comics have to be different guys, and are apparently a series of drone units rather than individual guys. Or at least they used to be drones. Hell, I dunno. Another Constructicon resembling an Buffalo MPV Decepticon is also among the bunch, so who really cares at this point?
Other trivia
- This is the second earliest entry into the movieverse fiction, beaten only by next issue, as it starts off before the Primes battle on Earth.
- Jetfire and the Constructicons are all greyish-brown, which doesn't do the big fight scene any favours.
- Despite their noble rep, the Dynasty's reaction to deliberate omnicide is little more than wagging a finger and saying "now don't do it again!".
- Rampage's Cybertronian form looks like almost exactly like his toy, except he has two legs.
- The Buffalo MPV Constructicon is drawn heavily based off of the original 2007 Bonecrusher toy, right down to the giant pieces of kibble on it's arms. The only thing missing is the claw on it's back.
- Chronologically, this is the first time Jetfire kills a Mixmaster unit. It also creates a full circle effect after he kills the second during Operation: Firestorm.
Covers (3)
- Cover A: Jetfire; art and colors by Alex Milne
- Cover B: Jetfire and some crazy shit behind him; art by Carlos Magno (and colors by Moose Baumann). This cover can be combined with #4's cover B to form a bigger picture.
- Cover RI: Title-free version of cover A
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Any of you young punks touch my stuff, I'll kill you! -
Aaaagh, what is behind meee? -
Lighten up, Francis!
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- TBA
