The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers
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| The name or term "Wrecker" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Wrecker (disambiguation). |
The Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers is a 5-issue limited series published by IDW Publishing in 2010 set in the main IDW continuity.
It follows the re-assembly of the Wreckers team after the events of All Hail Megatron maxiseries, among other things.
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KP: "...and obviously, we've got Wreckers."
NR: "Wot?"
KP: "Wreckers... no? Um, a bunch of guys..."
Overview
Hey! You look like a mark: wanna buy some action and adventure? Sure you do, you gullible chump. And what better place to find it than in Roche & Roberts' 'Last Stand of The Wreckers'! It's about a prison that fell to the Decepticons a coupla years back, but since then something screwy has occurred, and neither side - Autobot or Decepticon - has had any communication with The Last Resort since. When the Dinobots aren't available, and when you've got a bunch of Euro-exclusive toys that aren't too busy, then it's time to send for The Wreckers!Nick Roche [1]
It's a story of sacrifice and betrayal, and of good people dying in stupid, pointless ways.Verity Carlo
Creative team
The premise of the series was generated editorially. Nick Roche asked to do art for the series, only finding out later that he would also be writing the series. James Roberts is his co-writer, but only started being credited for the script from #2 (though he did #1's Rotorstorm profile). The prolific Josh Burcham provides the colors. Incentive covers were provided by Trevor Hutchison.
Items of note
- In an interview, Roche said that he would be playing with the idea that the Wreckers has "an ever-changing line-up". [2]
- This series is like Christmas if you love minor characters. New Wreckers Ironfist and Pyro had not been in any previous fiction before, and Rotorstorm had only had a minor cameo; the same is true of most of the evil Predators, and Overlord's only previous English-language fiction had been cameo appearances. Hell even Fearswoop shows up at one point. All of these guys had European toys in the early 90s: it's time for a new decade to get the nostalgia!
- Then add in Ultra Magnus (who worked with the Wreckers in Marvel UK), Guzzle (a frequent Marvel UK character), the first issue cliffhanger, Squadron X...
- The violence is deliberate, to make it absolutely unambiguous when Transformers are getting killed. [3]
- The deaths of protagonists are uniformly all horrible and potentially avoidable, and none of them are glorious battles to the death. A recurring theme, brought up in #3 and #5, is of good people dying in pointless ways.
- Overlord was chosen as a villain since Roche and Roberts figured nobody else would be using him, so there'd be no contradictions.
- Both Scorponok and Grimlock were originally intended to be large players in the series. Scorponok (his consciousness taken out of Abraham Dante and put back in his body by Shockwave) would have acted as Overlord's go to guy for crazy science and would develop Nucleon as a steroid analogue. The nucleon would power fighters up but damage their mental state. Scorponok would have solved the problem of not having a head by stealing Fortress Maximus'. Grimlock would have been dosed up on nucleon, trapping him in his dinosaur form, and rendering him a psychotic beast. Overlord was to have gone on to use him as the final opponent for anyone who progressed far enough in the arena. It was then intended that Overlord's defeat would come from the Wreckers knocking him into the arena with the enraged Grimlock. Although Grimlock did indeed have a minor part in the series, it was decided to deliberately minimalise any 'big name' characters at Garrus-9 so as not to overshadow the Wreckers. [4][5]
- Either Springer, Perceptor or Kup were going to die during planning, but in the end Roche and Roberts weren't allowed to do it. [6] Impactor, however, was never going to die!
- The back of the comic features character profiles, designed as entries on an internal Autobot database called "Autopedia". The entries are stubs, but you can help the Transformers' wiki by expanding them!
- The trade paperback features different profiles than the individual issues. TheTPB profiles use British spelling.
"Nick, James and Josh actually did those [profiles] completely free of charge to add something EXTRA to the comic for you because they love you."Andy Schmidt [7]
Collections
- Last Stand of the Wreckers TPB (September 1, 2010) ISBN 1600107168 / ISBN 978-1600107160
- Extras include the 11-page prose story "Bullets", the Transformers: Mosaic "Dead Men's Boots", profiles for Snare and Overlord, a "movie poster" of the series, a page of "Fisitron's Facts," and a page of sketches called "Prison Slops".
- A cover gallery is not included, but in light of what we got, who cares!
- The profiles that were in the miniseries aren't in the trade. Roche told Moonbase 2 in 2010 that this was deliberate because he and IDW want to sell more comics. We still love ya, Nick!
