The Transformers: Stormbringer
| The name or term "Stormbringer" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Stormbringer (disambiguation). |
The Transformers: Stormbringer is a 4-issue limited series published by IDW Publishing and set in the main IDW continuity. Occurring roughly during the same period of time as the Infiltration arc, it establishes the situation of Cybertron and the rest of the Autobots and Decepticons not on Earth.
It is issues #7–10 in the IDW overarching "sub-numbering" (shown by a number in an Autobot-sigil shaped shield beside the barcode on each issue), and was originally published between July and October, 2006.
Stormbringer was scripted by Transformer veteran Simon Furman and penciled by Don Figueroa—the pair also worked together on Dreamwave Productions' The War Within and IDW's Transformers, Beast Wars: The Gathering.
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Overview
Stormbringer gives readers their first look at the larger war beyond Earth. Cybertron is a dead, wasted world, victim of some distant cataclysm that elder Transformers, including Optimus Prime and Megatron, were present at. Prime's musings establish that the long war between the Autobots and Decepticons was directly responsible for the cataclysm, and in flashback we discover that a single demonic figure was somehow the focus for or avatar of the event; this being was so powerful that only the combined might of the Autobots and Decepticons could stop it.
Both Autobots and Decepticons appear to have large, star-spanning armies. Similar Decepticon infiltration cells to the one portrayed in Infiltration are seen on the planets Nebulos and Varas Centralus. The Autobots' main base is a space station orbiting a planet at least nineteen megacycles away from Cybertron via foldspace travel, and they possess at least one space battlecruiser, the Xantium.
Stormbringer was proudly advertised with the tagline "NOTHING BUT ROBOTS ON CYBERTRON", seemingly in response to fandom outcries over those horrible humans and general lack of robot-on-robot action which had infested IDW's initial Infiltration storyline. Nice goin' there, fandom.
The image assembled from the four "A" covers has a small but interesting error: Thunderwing appears twice. At the top right, he is in the middle of the blue energy burst, while he is in his Ultra Mode at the bottom right. To be fair though, the group of Transformers fighting Thunderwing in the energy burst appear to represent the battle prior to him being reawakened, as it includes several Transformers that are currently on Earth and not in the story itself.
Collections
- Stormbringer TPB (February 28, 2007) ISBN 160010018X / ISBN 978-1600100185
- Bonus material includes images of each cover and concept art of many characters, several of which would not appear in the story. It bears the number #2 on its side.
- Stormbringer Manga TPB (April 11, 2007) ISBN 1600100422 / ISBN 978-1600100420
- B&W small format
- The Transformers: Premiere Collection Volume 1 (December 5, 2007) ISBN 1600101186 / ISBN 978-1600101182
- Hardcover collection of Stormbringer and other IDW stories.
- The Transformers: The IDW Collection Volume Two (October 6, 2010) ISBN 978-1600107511
