I've been repainted black... not logical!
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Shockwave discovers that logic is not always efficient...
Synopsis
Six hundred thousand "Meta-Cycles" [sic] ago, while the Great War on Cybertron raged, the Decepticon Shockwave foresaw that the incessant fighting between Autobots and Decepticons would cause an energon crisis which would have a devastating effect on the planet itself. Acting alone, Shockwave commenced a project he called 'Regenesis', distilling raw energon and loading it aboard missiles which he sent to various planets, one of which was pre-Ice Age Earth.
"Much later", after the last Ice Age was done and mammoths were dying off as a result, Shockwave traveled to Earth to regulate the planet's wild energon reactions. Unbeknownst to the Decepticon, the Dynobots had tracked him to the planet. During the war, the Dynobots had lost face to Shockwave after he had foiled a vital energon-gathering mission, and all five Transformers were hungry for revenge.
The energon reaction on Earth's surface was causing energy fluctuations dangerous to unshielded Transformers. Shockwave was prepared, but the Dynobots had no protection. Slag's novel solution involved using the CR chambers of their ship, the Skyfire, to re-design the Dynobots' secondary modes to resemble native animals; the alt-modes' synthetic flesh would act to buffer the Energon radiation. When Grimlock rejected Earth's Ice Age mammalian lifeforms, Slag discovered fossilized remains of dinosaurs, to which Grimlock immediately took.
The Dynobots located Shockwave on the surface and attacked him. Shockwave, confused by the assault, which had no basis in logic, seemed easy prey for Grimlock's squad. Then something happened; with his core logic failing him, Shockwave abandoned calculation and for the first time experienced rage. His brutal retaliation battered the Dynobots, quickly stripping them of their protective synthetic flesh and thus forcing them into stasis lock. Shockwave prepared to steal the Skyfire (his had been disabled/destroyed by the Dynobots), but before he could do so, the Dynobots' ship acted on a command pre-programmed by Grimlock and fired upon a nearby volcano. The blast cracked the earth open, spilling Shockwave and the Dynobots into a pit of molten lava.
Thousands of years later, in 2006, a team of archaeologists digging in Nevada unearthed a massive, metal, purple hand...
Credits
Script: Simon Furman
Art: Nick Roche
Colors: Josh Burcham
Lettering: Sulaco Studios
Editor: Dan Taylor
- Originally published: September 13, 2006
- Continuity: IDW continuity
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans |
|---|---|---|
|
Errors
- None identified as yet.
Items of note
- This is the second continuity in which the team has been known as the "Dynobots" before coming to Earth; they previously used the name in Dreamwave's The War Within series.
- The story rather cleverly finds a way to bring a group of transforming chrome dinosaurs to modern-day Earth, explaining what would otherwise be an aberration in the Cold War cloak-and-dagger world of IDW's G1 continuity.
- Slag's creative solution to the energon radiation problem is very similar to the original premise of the Beast Wars cartoon.
- But seriously, Slag, the destructive, brawling, no-friends flamethrower, is the one who came up with this?
- Megatron orders Bludgeon to find out what the missing Shockwave was working on, tying the story in to Stormbringer.
- A supposed throw-away line on the Mechatopia.com website, which mentions a find in Nevada and "dinosaur-variant mechanoids", bears fruit in this issue.
- The story is a bit of an homage to the original Marvel Comics series, wherein Shockwave battles the Dinobots on pre-historic Earth, and they all end up buried for millions of years.
- The Dynobots' ship is unnamed in this story, but would be named as the Skyfire in Spotlight: Grimlock.
Covers (5)
It's snowing and I'm purple... is this the future Minneapolis?
- Cover A: Shockwave at console by James Raiz and Josh Burcham (colors)
- Cover B: Shockwave in snow by Nick Roche and Josh Burcham (colors)
- Cover RI-A: cover A, uncolored
- Cover RI-B: cover B, uncolored
- Retailer Summit: Shockwave gold foil-stamped wraparound by Nick Roche and Rob Ruffolo (colors)
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