Spotlight: Optimus Prime

Script: Simon Furman Art: Don Figueroa Lettering: Chris Mowry Colors: Josh Burcham Editors: Dan Taylor Covers by: Don Figueroa, Gabriel Rodriguez


 * Major characters (in order of appearance): Optimus Prime, Prowl, Nova Prime, Omega Supreme, Monstructor, Jetfire.


 * Originally published: September, 2007

Synopsis
In the wake of his brush with death at Megatron's hands, Prime is pensive. To find out more about the sinister presence he felt while transferring his Spark through infraspace, he takes Ark-32 and journeys to the Muta-Gaath Nebula -- secret home of Omega Supreme. Unfortunately, another ship observes his transit, its inhabitants vowing to destroy whoever's inside the asteroid base that Omega calls home.

Prime quizzes Omega about Nova Prime and the original Ark's mission; they both suspect it was one of expansion and conquest, rather than exploration as had been advertised. Omega explains that Nova Prime felt that Cybertronians were superior to other life forms and had a duty to impress their likeness on the rest of the universe.

But before they can further pursue the matter, Monstructor smashes his way in to Omega's domain. The enraged combiner robot has come for Omega Supreme; Monstructor makes short work of him, ripping off his cannon arm within seconds and nearly crushing him with a shuttlecraft. Prime's weapons are repelled by an energy-dampening field, so Prime blasts open an airlock, sucking all three of them into space.

Omega uses his rocket-engine arm to transport himself and Prime as far away as he can, but they both know Monstructor is hot on their heels. Prime demands answers, and Omega explains that Monstructor was an attempt by Jhiaxus, at Nova Prime's behest, to combine minds and bodies of a group of Transformers to enhance strength and intellect. But the process failed, and the combined formed "devolved into a monster". After Jhiaxus and Nova Prime disappeared aboard the original Ark, Omega locked Monstructor away in a dimensionally displaced prison, an act which Prime finds reprehensible.

Further debate is ended as Monstructor's ship arrives, and the monster dives at them. Omega tells Prime that Monstructor has one weak spot, an area of his chest; unable to reason with the giant, Prime strikes the area, and Monstructor breaks apart into his components. Prime swears to the fallen robots that he will help them.

An Autobot cleanup crew arrives later, to restore Omega Supreme and take the Monstructor team prisoner. Omega warns Prime that if the gestalt technology falls into Megatron's hands, the result will be an all-consuming war. Jetfire takes the combiner robots away, leaving Optimus to reflect on the tarnished legacy of the Prime lineage.

Errors

 * Bristleback asks a question ("Which is?"), and Birdbrain starts to answer it ("SMASH our way in...") -- but in the following panel, Bristleback is shown finishing Birdbrain's sentence ("...and kill WHOEVER and WHATEVER we find inside!")

Items of Note

 * This issue establishes that the various combiner teams shown to date in the IDW universe (Technobots, Constructicons, the odd Protectobot and Combaticon) aren't actually combiners yet.
 * This issue further establishes that the Pretender Monsters are AWESOME and that Monstructor is a total badass death machine. But we already knew that.