Aspects of Evil!



An aged Rodimus remembers the evils of the Decepticon leaders, and a terrifying revelation is made.

=Marvel UK issues #223-7=

Writer: Simon Furman Artists: Jeff Anderson, Art Wetherwell, Andrew Wildman, Lee Sullivan, Simon Coleby Lettering: Helen Stone, Glib, Nick Abadzis


 * Characters Rodimus Prime, Scorponok, Air Strike Patrol, Galvatron, Kup, Arcee, Shockwave, Megatron, Bludgeon, Unicron


 * Originally published: 24th June 1989 - 22nd July 1989

Synopsis
In the year 2356, in a medbay on Autobot City: Earth, a decrepit and sickly Rodimus Prime is visited by an Autobot student who is researching the nature of evil.

Rodimus recalls...


 * Scorponok - In the year 1991, the Decepticon civil war is nearly over and a wounded, defeated Scorponok rampages through a human town with the Air Strike Patrol pursuing with intent to kill. This turns out to be deliberate: it draws Hot Rod and his team to him, at which point he surrenders. Hot Rod is now forced by the Autobot Code to protect Scorponok from being killed. Since he also can't fight the Air Strike Patrol in a human settlement, he has to merely lead them into the countryside, which means Scorponok is left unguarded and is free to walk away to plot anew.


 * Galvatron - When Rodimus' Autobots returned to 2009 following the Time Wars, they found the timeline had healed, revising history; now Galvatron hadn't fled to 1987 Earth, and because of this the Decepticons had conquered Cybertron. Galvatron attacked Rodimus, taunting him with his defeat and with the revelation he'd murdered Blurr]. His intention was to goad Rodimus into a fury, corrupting the Creation Matrix with his baser instincts and meaning he could control it. The other Autobots were able to pull Rodimus back from the brink - but in the process, Galvatron had awakened Unicron, trapped in the Matrix since [[The Legacy of Unicron!...


 * Shockwave - Autobot City was officially opened in 2004, attended by various Earth heads of state. Shockwave attacked with a small army, logically working out that the Autobots would try to protect the humans before fighting back, be slaughtered before they realised they had to fight back, that the death of human leaders would destroy Autobot/Earth relations, and that this act would lead to him taking command of the Decepticons again. His logic was undone by Hot Rod illogically attacking him directly, which caused the attack to break off and strengthened relations with Earth.


 * Megatron - On Cybertron in 1990, Hot Rod, Kup and Blurr were freed from Decepticon captivity by an Autobot deep-cover agent named Warmonger. Recaptured, Hot Rod was forced to watch as Megatron accused Bludgeon of being the traitor responsible. Bldugeon demanded to prove his innocent through a traditional trial-by-combat against the other Decepticons, which is what Megatron had hoped for; Warmonger revealed himself as an Autobot when he couldn't bring himself to murder Bludgeon, and so Megatron killed him. Megatron showed casual disregard for the idea Bludgeon could have died first, and mused it would have been simpler to just kill everyone.

Throughout this, the student gets more and more eager to learn of Unicron, leading to Rodimus to recall:


 * Unicron's third coming in 2010, his body rebuilt. He devastated Cybertron and almost wiped out everyone before Rodimus drew his spirit back into the tained Matrix. But when Kup and Arcee found him, they realised Rodimus - screaming at them to stay back: "it's not safe!" - had been part of Unicron's body...

The student sneers at this as a work of fiction, rips off his Autobrand and storms out declaring he'll find Unicron himself and prove to Rodimus what evil is. Rodimus realises he's unleashed the student's evil side, and that Unicron is taking control again...

Continuity
It's round about this time UK continuity gets iffy. The Galvatron segment and framing story follow on from both Time Wars and The Legacy Of Unicron, and the idea of Unicron's spirit loose in the Matrix will carry on into the final post-movie story in #251-4. Scorponok and Megatron's segments don't really fit at all though, and have to be considered apocryphal.

A Galvatron unfamiliar with the Time Wars turns up in Perchance to Dream, with a similar scheme of unleashing the baser sides of Autobots. They may be the same Galvatron.

Items of note

 * Part 1 refers to a Decepticon civil war between Megatron, Scorponok and Shockwave in 1991. In the US reprints, eventually a subplot will develop of Shockwave preparing to declare a Decepticon civil war against Scorponok, with the resulting story being reprinted in 1991. This would hint Furman had the Decepticon civil war idea planned this far back but went on to change the details of it considerably.
 * The same format of flashback-based character vignettes with a framing story will be used again in Perchance to Dream.
 * All of the post-movie stories have been wiped from existence after the Time Wars, with a new revised history in place. The full effects of this - i.e. are dead characters still alive, did Cyclonus and Scourge go back in time (if they didn't, Death's Head would still be around too) - are never explored. However, Rodimus refers to The Legacy of Unicron as still having happened.