Mystery of the Speedia 500

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« Transformers New Legends
The Transformers:
End of G1 Universe
Chapter Three
"Mystery of Speedia 500"
スピーディア500の謎
(Speedia 500 no Nazo)
Publisher TakaraTomy
First published 2026 April 14
Manga Hayato Sakamoto
Color Tai Koshii (1, 2, 3, 8, 18p),
Gufu Kandagawa (4, 5, 6p),
Tasuku Tajima (7p),
Lebanon Sugi (9, 10, 21p),
Usakomu (11, 12, 13p),
Rakurai Tsunetaka (1, 14, 15, 16, 23p)
Ricken (17, 18p),
Yuki Ohshima (19, 20p),
DAI-XT (24p)
Editor Kouji Nimura
Continuity Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity and Galaxy Force cartoon continuity
Chronology The End

Seeking a power source to save their universe, the Stunticons end up in a multiversal race.

Synopsis

Aboard Untite's ship, Bluebolt explains to Dark Amber Leo Prime that Lio Convoy's green color and his dark amber color is the result of exposure to righteous Angolmois Energy and malevolent Angolmois Energy, respectively, examples of the color changing phenomenon. Such color changes can come from all sorts of power ups, including those induced by Energon Matrices and forestonite during the G2 era. Forestonite has the same power as Energon Matrices, and this is why the veteran Stunticons have embarked on a journey to find more forestonite.

In the Nemesis, the Stunticons find a black hole, intending to go through to the other side. Dead End, ever pessimistic, doesn't mind the risk, what with the universe ending and all, while Wildrider relishes the thrill. Breakdown, on the other end, is terrified and not very good at hiding it. Drag Strip, on the other hand, is frustrated because this kind of space exploration isn't for him. He was built to be number one in racing, and none of this stuff interests him. After he crosses the line in insulting the other Stunticons, Motormaster shuts down the whining, pointing out that they got this important job thanks to their record as a former scout squad, but get violent when the dismissive F-1 racer brings up his leader's rivalry with Optimus Prime. Crossing into the black hole, the Stunticons and the ship are affected by the dimension's forestonite particles, inducing a G2-style color change in their bodies. In 2010, four Transformers had went into a black hole and experienced similar changes, but did not investigate why then. Now it is realized that it was the result of the presence of forestonite. The Stunticons spot a rift that's pulling them in, and they willingly decide to enter.

On the other side, they find the planet Velocitron during one of its many races. In the race, the New Decepticon Army attempts to use their rocket car to interfere with the racing Hot Shot, but he manages to escape their clutches with Cyber Key power, and the trio of malicious doofuses end up crashing and arrested by police. The scenario speaks to Drag Strip's inner soul as a racer. The Stunticons are brought before Flatline, who explains that Velocitron is now a destination of multiversal travel since the denizens of this universe began the Multiverse Space Bridge Initiative. Looking up their origin, Flatline determines the Stunticons to be from the G1 World during the G2 era and, despite Motormaster's protestations, impresses them into racers to help generate energy for the planet and marks them with the G2 Decepticon insginia. The doctor also gives them new livery to reflect their forestonite-granted abilities. When they're let go, Motormaster ignores the entire racing thing, wanting to get back to their actual goal, which upsets Drag Strip, who swears off the other Stunticons to race to his heart's content. Motormaster doesn't appreciate the insubordination and walks off on his own to complete their mission to save their universe. Drag Strip runs into Hot Shot, and the two gas each other up for the next race.

In the next Speedia 500 race, many Transformers from different universes participate: Prowl and Wasp from the Animated World; Knock Out and Breakdown from the Prime World; Lockdown and Shadow Striker from the Cyberverse World; champion and leader of Velocitron, Hot Shot; and Drag strip from the G1 World. The other three Stunticons survey the race's spectators, figuring that they're all from worlds in their post-war era and decide to join the race. Elsewhere, Motormaster, figuring he should learn about this universe's history, runs into the Mini-Con Jolt, who offers to serve as Motormaster's guide.

The race begins and Breakdown manages to take out both Knock Out and the other Breakdown with his oil-leaking. Wildrider's swerving causes Wasp to peter out, and Prowl jumps on the reckless Stunticon, forcing both off the racetrack—Wildrider activates his anti-grav gear and the two career off into the sky. Dead End uses his fireball charge to rush through the Cyberverse racers, and Shadow Striker is forced to take care of a disassembled Lockdown.

In the "Shrine of Speedia", Jolt explains to Motormaster about his universe: after stopping the Grand Black Hole that threatened their world, they began the New Space Bridge Initiative to connect the scattered Transformer colonies. Motormaster, realizing that if this universe's denizens could save their world from destruction, the same could happen for the G1 World, is elated with hope. Jolt continues that the Space Bridge project developed into multiversal travel so that they could connect and collaborate with other universes. Motormaster speculates that his world could perhaps evacuate its population to those other worlds if needed. Spotting a display of the Ancients who began the original Space Bridge Initiative, Motormaster recognizes one of them as his rival on the road, Autobot Supreme Commander Optimus Prime!

In the race, Dead End continues careening out of control as a fireball. He muses that perhaps it's finally his time to go and thinks back to his good times with the other Stunticons before he's rescued by Breakdown. Their tearful conversation elicits applause from the crowd, and the two sit out the rest of the race. It's down to the final two racers—Hot Shot and Drag Strip—as they enter a tunnel. Hot Shot uses his Cyber Key power to speed ahead, but Drag Strip has a trick up his sleeve; using his G2 power of Shadowstrip of moving instantaneously in darkness, the Stunticon slips ahead of his opponent and wins the race. But just before he cross the finish line, Wildrider and Prowl crash into Drag Strip from the sky. Hot Shot rushes to help the hurt racer. Drag Strip doesn't appreciate the Autobot stopping the race just to help a fallen opponent, but Hot Shot points out that he did cross the goal already, even if his run ended in an accident. Hot Shot explains to Drag Strip that he had previously spurred help to win races, but that he was able to gain his first win with the help of his friends, just as Drag Strip had with his Stunticon comrades taking out the other racers (even if it's against the rules...).

Celebrations are interrupted when the Nemesis goes out of control and Metroplex is called in to handle the wayward ship. To defend their ride, Motormaster transforms into Menasor by himself prompting Drag Strip to declare that it's their duty to help their leader. The four Stunticons combine, finishing up G2 Menasor and allowing him access to all of their superpowers. With a ruby as lens, Menasor fells Metroplex with the Container Laser Cannon. Before the battle can continue, Jolt rushes to stop the commotion, explaining to the giant Autobot the Stunticons' purpose in this universe. He has talked with their Primus, who has explained that such color changes have occurred both in the unvierse that existed "before this one was created," and also in the past of this universe, where they were brought on a dark fog generated by the power of Unicron, the dark god who was destroyed in the previous universe. The Stunticons recognize this Unicron as different from the one they know and suppose that the dark fog must be a form of Angolmois Energy. The Nemesis, revealing its erratic behavior as the result of strange fog, crashes and a figure emerges from the spaceship. It reveals itself as Nemesis Prime! Looking from afar, a cycloptic figure is satisfied with this turn of events, noting that a giant energon star will reset this universe...

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals/Autobots Decepticons/Predacons Others

Notes

Continuity notes

  • This story makes extensive reference to the recurring phenomenon in Transformers stories that sees robots spontaneously change colour when they undergo a power-up. Examples Bluebolt gives are the Car Robo Brothers acquiring their super modes from God Magnus's Energon Matrix (as seen in the Robots in Disguise episode "Power to Burn!") and various recolours that Transformers underwent during Generation 2, which are explained to be the result of forestonite. Though a creation of Japanese media—specifically the one-shot Generation 2 manga "The New Battle!!—forestonite was never linked to recolouration or special powers in Japanese media; the idea was a creation of the BotCon story "Generation 2: Redux."
  • The Stunticons were shown to start their journey to find new energy sources in the previous chapter. That story also features the mentioned unification of the Cybertronian population under the "Maximal" banner and the abolishment of the Convoy system.
  • The black hole encountered by the Stunticons is either based on, or is the same one featured in the Generation 1 episode "The Killing Jar." In that episode, the characters who travelled inside the black hole gained inverted colour schemes, which was indicated to be because the interior of the hole was a "negative universe," but here, it's explained that the effect was scaused by forestonite particles saturating the negaverse. Motormaster notes that the Transformers in "The Killing Jar" initially thought they were simply experiencing a malfunction in their "colour perceptors," directly referecing a line of dialogue from Cyclonus in the episode.
  • Wildrider mentions the Stunticons participating in demolition derbies, as seen in the episode "Starscream's Brigade." Drag Strip notes he doesn't take part in races like that; "Starscream's Brigade" did indeed show him not joining his team-mates in the carnage, staying in robot mode and handling communications with the other Decepticons while his buddies tore up the road.
  • Drag Strip runs down the origins of the vehicles from which the Stunticons were built, as seen in the "The Key to Vector Sigma, Part 1," bragging about how he was the car driven by the racer known as Mueller, and how Dead End was a pair of bank robbers' getaway car. The episode did not show where the cars that became Wildrider or Breakdown came from; it is here revealed for the first time that Wildrider belonged to a gang of dangerous-driving delinquents, and that Breakdown was a "leaky jalopy that only looked good on the outside."
  • Drag Strip notes that he's changed his name; his original Takara name was "Drag Stripe" (ドラッグストライプ). It's been changed to "Drag Strip" (ドラッグストリップ) to align with Hasbro nomenclature and the name the Legacy toy is sold under in Japan. Menasor's name also changes in spelling (メナゾール to メナソー), but this goes unmentioned.
  • The rift the Stunticons encounter in the black hole is based on the rift featured in the the Energon cartoon, in which it linked the regular universe to Alpha Q's pocket universe, introduced in "Ripped Up Space."
  • The Stunticons emerge from the rift in the universe of the Transformers: Cybertron cartoon, on the planet Velocitron, in an era some time after the end of the that series. Hot Shot is now the planet's leader, after winning the Speedia 500 in "Beginning", the final episode of the series. Also present are the planet's flying race announcers and a scanning computer from "Race".
  • The New Decepticon Army makes a reappearance, sans Thundercracker, whose heart was never in the new group.
  • Hot Shot uses his Cyber Key, a power-up gimmick established in the Cybertron franchise.
  • Flatline states that the new Space Bridge project set up in "Beginning" developed into a multiversal effort connecting different worlds, explaining the crossover of various characters in the previous "Velocitron Speedia 500" comics, which are indicated to be set after the events of this story.
  • Animated Prowl is shown with an AllSpark fragment in his chest, explaining why he's alive when he died in in the finale of Animated. Wasp is shown reverted to his original non-technorganic self and noted to be found innocent of his presumed crime, having been framed by Animated Shockwave in "Autoboot Camp". Wasp still has hard feelings towards Bumblebee for believing the ruse.
  • Prime Knock Out and Breakdown are shown as a couple, a common take on their relationship in the Prime cartoon. Knock Out bemoans being foiled by oil again, referring to a similar experience in "Speed Metal".
  • Wildrider and Dead End are portrayed as friends, in reference to their appearance together in "The Burden Hardest to Bear". The narration added to the Japanese dub of that episode erroneously claimed the two characters featured in the scene were the Battlechargers, a mistake that is here, pretty bizarrely, patched over by having Wildrider state that he and Dead End once "switched bodies" with the Battlechargers.
  • The presentation that Jolt shows Motormaster is the documentary he and Bud were shown recording in "Beginning." The images of the screens are direct recreations of "talking head" interview segments seen in the episode, and show Override, Scourge, Leobreaker, and Thundercracker (hefting a girder, with a lopsided Autobot symbol pasted onto his chest). Jolt mentions that Bud is now "famous"; the closing credits of "Beginning" established that he'd grow up to be an award-winning director.
  • The originators of the first Space Bridge project from the Cybertron cartoon are shown; they were visually based on Optimus Prime, Hot Rod, Ultra Magnus, and Jazz. Motormaster assumes that the "Optimus Prime" he sees is the same as the one he knows, but whether he's right is left unconfirmed.
  • The ruby that Menasor pulls out is the same one (or one very like the one) that Motormaster stole in the Generation 1 episode "Masquerade," in which was a key component needed for that episode's new Decepticon superweapon. Menasor specifically notes he's combining it with the "lens" in his cannon; an experimental laser lens was also a component of the weapon in "Masquerade."
  • Jolt mentions talking to "Lord Primus", who was a centerpiece character of Cybertron and possessed Jolt himself in that cartoon to serve some exposition.
  • The information Jolt has acquired from Primus regards the continuity issues of the Unicron Trilogy universe. Put briefly, the three components of the trilogy, Armada, Energon, and Cybertron were meant to all be set in one connected universe, but in Japan, Cybertron wound up being produced as a new series, unconnected to the other two. English media would try to retcon it back into continuity as best it could; Japanese sources have dithered on the matter. In this story, it is strongly intimated that the "universe that existed before" the world of Cybertron is the one in which Armada and Energon took place, and that that world "ended" or was "reset" somehow, creating the Cybertron universe.
  • To wit: the "power that could change one's colour" in the previous universe was displayed various times, such as when the Mini-Cons powered-up several Transformers into their "Powerlinx" forms in the Armada episode "Puppet"; when the energy of Primus recoloured several Autobots in the Energon episode "Optimus Supreme"; or when Super Energon achieved the same effect on Megatron and Starscream in "Wishes."
  • The "dark fog" incident took place in the Cybertron episode "Darkness," in which a mysterious black fog saved Megatron from death, and was used to achieve various effects, including recolouring and powering-up Crumplezone into "Dark Crumplezone." The Japanese version of the episode did not link this fog to Unicron, as a result of the dark god's importance to the story of Cybertron being greatly minimized as part of the continuity split; the connection between the two was established by the English version. A similar black foggy effect was also seen in the later episode "Fury," when Megatron was recolour-power-upped into Galvatron; that wasn't explicitly a Unicron thing in either version, but it might be been lumped in with it here.
  • That's probably a Cybertron-universe incarnation of Energon Shockblast at the end of the story. He notes that soon, "a giant Energon Star will reset this universe," which seems to call back to the formation of the Energon Sun in "The Sun," the final episode of Energon, and suggests it may have been involved in the events that ended the Armada/Energon universe and created the Cybertron universe. The sun was also key to the approach English-language media took to its handling of the continuity discrepancies of the trilogy; there, stories from the Transformers Collectors' Club established that the sun collapsed into a black hole that warped reality itself, creating the disparities between series.

Transformers references

Real-world references

  • The group of Thunderblast, Crumplezone, and Ransack behave according to the trope established by the villainous Marjo's Gang trio in Time Bokan, which went on to inspire many similar trios in later Japanese media.

Other notes

  • Not an error per se, but in "The Killing Jar", Marissa Faireborn also had her colors inverted by the negative universe.

References

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