Stormbringer (comics)

An ecological disaster on Cybertron spills across many worlds...

= IDW Transformers: Stormbringer issues #1-4 =

Script: Simon Furman Art: Don Figueroa Lettering: Robbie Robbins (#2) Colors: Josh Burcham (#2) Editor: Chris Ryall (#2) and Dan Taylor (#2)


 * Major characters (in order of appearance): Jetfire, Nosecone, Afterburner, Optimus Prime, Searchlight, Megatron, Thunderwing, Bludgeon, Springer
 * Originally published: May, 2006 (#1), June, 2006 (#2)

Synopsis
Stormbringer is a companion limited series to IDW's ongoing G1-reboot title. Set 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.

The reader learns almost immediately that the rebooted G1 universe features some radical differences from original continuity, the first being that in our time 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 even the combined might of the Autobots and Decepticons could stop it.

We also discover that both Autobots and Decepticons appear to have large, star-spanning empires. 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 battelcruiser, the Xantium.

Items of Note
If the Transformers ongoing series is maintaining a focus on the classic G1 characters, then Stormbringer appears intent on drawing the more esoteric Transformers into the rebooted continuity and explaining their at-times odd technology. Thunderwing's "grafting process" appears to be the origin of Pretender technology, given that Thunderwing has only been glimpsed outside his shell prior to the apocalypse and that Bludgeon and all of the named Decepticons working for him thus far are part of the G1 Pretender toy line. Also, most of the Decepticons glimpsed in the background of the frame set inside the Decepticon command bunker on Nebulos are mostly (if not all) members of the Headmasters, Targetmasters and Powermasters lines.