The Illusion of Control
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| "The Illusion of Control" | |||||||||||||
| Publisher | IDW Publishing | ||||||||||||
| First published | July 3, 2013 | ||||||||||||
| Story by | Chris Metzen & Flint Dille | ||||||||||||
| Art by | Livio Ramondelli | ||||||||||||
| Letters by | Tom B. Long | ||||||||||||
| Editor | John Barber | ||||||||||||
| Continuity | IDW continuity | ||||||||||||
| Chronology | Early in the war | ||||||||||||
The Autobots fight Trypticon while Scorponok pays the price for his coup.
Synopsis
Angry with himself for his failure to keep Dai Atlas and Grimlock from leaving, Optimus Prime voices his frustration to Alpha Trion, but the sage's advice is interrupted by reports that Trypticon is rampaging across Cybertron in the direction of Harmonex. After ordering his troops to prepare their biggest guns, Prime goes to ask for help from Metroplex, who recognizes Trypticon as a monster he helped seal away in ancient times. However, he cannot join the fight this time as the energon crisis has robbed him of the energy he needs transform into robot mode. Without the titan's help, the Autobots device a plan to use the buildings of Harmonex against Trypticon, though they regret that they will have to ruin the beautiful Singing City in the process. Blurr's harassment team lures Trypticon close to the city's central structure, where Ironhide's heavy weapons units is waiting to blast him with fusion-borers. While the monster is distracted by the barrage, the Aerialbots bombard the building, collapsing it and burying Trypticon in rubble.
Meanwhile, Scorponok is pulled away from reveling in the destruction caused by Trypticon by Starscream, who invites him to Kolkular's main hall where the Decepticons are waiting to honor their "true leader". On entering the hall, however, he finds that Starscream was in fact referring to a returning Megatron, who greets him by crippling him with an energy blast. Scorponok attempts to flee, fight and finally plead for mercy with Megatron, but nothing works—Megatron unceremoniously shoots him in the head and leaves him to be torn to pieces by the Terrorcons, though not before ordering them to keep him alive so that he can continue to feel pain. Having finally taken back his position as Decepticon leader, Megatron gets back to business and demands to know what has happened to his planet in his absence.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
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Notes
- The heart of Metroplex visited by Optimus Prime is the Matrix shrine previously seen in his Acropolex disguise in issue #5 of Autocracy.
- Metroplex identifies Trypticon as a "spawn of Mortilus", a death god introduced in the More than Meets the Eye 2012 annual.
- Some more The Transformers: The Movie quotes happen when Scorponok reacts to Megatron's return with "Megatron? Is that you?", to which Megatron replies "Here's a hint." and shoots him.
