End of the Road! (Marvel US comic)

All good things...

=Marvel US issue #80= (Story also appears in: Marvel UK issues #331-332

Script: Simon Furman Pencils: Andrew Wildman Inks: Stephen Baskerville Lettering: Rick Parker Colors: Nelson Yomtov Cover: Andrew Wildman


 * Major characters (in order of appearance): Getaway, Darkwing, Dreadwind, Bludgeon, Stranglehold, Battletrap, Snapdragon, Crankcase, Siren, Octopunch, Fangry, Weirdwolf, Quake, Grimlock, Prowl, Kup, Blaster, Slag, Horri-Bull, Last Autobot, Optimus Prime, Ravage, Squeezeplay
 * Originally published: July, 1991

Synopsis
Sometime after the end of the last issue, the Autobots came to Klo, saw a Decepticon, and were conquered. As Octopunch leads a tracker team to hunt down the remaining survivors, Grimlock is trying to keep the last five Autobots alive. Unfortunately for him, Prowl is one of the survivors and spares no breath berating Grimlock for the situation. It seems the Dinobots were lead into an obvious trap upon the Autobots' arrival on Klo, and the resulting melee was a slaughter. Prowl's pontificating is cut short when Fangry leads the hunting party to double-back, and the Decepticons move in for the kill.

Back at the scene of the first battle, Bludgeon is about to administer another execution when he and his warriors are suddenly caught off guard by the arriving Neo-Knights. The Decepticons quickly learn that the humans were only the first wave, and the resurrected Optimus Prime himself drops onto the battlefield. Despite Bludgeon's disbelieving cries, Prime is indeed back, and he introduces his new friend, the legendary Last Autobot. The child of Primus relates how he first encountered Hi-Q and the Neo-Knights on Cybertron, and reformatted the Nebulan into a Nucleon-enhanced Actionmaster version of Optimus Prime.

The Decepticons dogpile on Prime, but prove less than effective. What's more, the Last Autobot begins using his powers to reanimate all the fallen Autobots, increasing their forces by the minute. As Grimlock and his group of survivors charge over the hillside, the tide of battle quickly turns towards the Autobots, and Bludgeon's troops are put to retreat. As Bludgeon proclaims he will lead his troops into the voluntary exile that honor demands, he quietly tells Stranglehold to gather their forces, to live to fight another day.

As the Autobots wrap up, Optimus Prime informs his brethern that Cybertron survives, restored by the Last Autobot's power and the Matrix energy that awashed the planet in the final battle with Unicron. The Autobots prepare to help the Klozians rebuild, take the Neo-Knights home and, finally, return to their home planet for a new era of peace and enlightenment.

Til all are one.

Items of note

 * Optimus Prime appears in his Actionmaster design here, but Nucleon is not explicitly mentioned as being a part of his transformation. That is only confirmed in Transformers UK Annual #7, Another Time and Place.
 * If a (Fill in the Blank)master is killed with their partner, could the Last Autobot still resurrect them?
 * Game over, man -- game over.