TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE #83

"LOOSE ENDS, PART 3"

Writer: Simon Furman | Penciler: Andrew Wildman | Inker: Stephen Baskerville

Colorist: John-Paul Bove | Letterer: Chris Mowry | Editor: John Barber

Editor-in-Chief: Chris Ryall

The Plot: On Earth, the Wreckers make peace with Circuit Smasher, who takes them to the headquarters of the remaining human resistance, and describes Megatron's conquest of the planet. Megatron sends out a communication informing the Wreckers that he has Kup prisoner. Springer begins to formulate a rescue plan. Meanwhile, after learning of Megatron's presence on Earth, Optimus Prime and Ultra Magnus lead a team of Autobots to stop him. Elsewhere, Bludgeon's Decepticons conquer a planet, then Bludgeon receives a call from Soundwave, informing him that the Autobots are gone and he will now be able to procure the mysterious item Bludgeon requires... which appears to be the remains of a Transformer.

G1 Continuity: Circuit Smasher is revealed to be Spike Witwicky, longtime Autobot ally and once the Headmaster partner of Fortress Maximus. The leader of the human resistance is G.B. Blackrock, who was an oil magnate and friend to the Autobots throughout the original series. Megatron has exposed Kup to the Scraplets, metal-eating space-mites from the Budiansky run.

Also, Circuit Breaker appears -- unnamed in silhouette to avoid rights issues -- during Spike's flashbacks to the Megatron war. Blackrock later mentions her, calling her only "a former employee".

G2 Continuity: TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION TWO never happened in this continuity, but Furman has borrowed one element from those stories: Bludgeon's Decepticons appear to be traveling around in the Warworld, which was a massive starship Bludgeon used to terrorize the galaxy in G2.

G.I. Continuity: Though not called by name, the subterranean headquarters of the human resistance is described as the "operational H.Q. for one of those elite, ultra-secret combat units [Spike] once thought only existed in movies" -- which apparently battled the Transformers in the past. Unless I'm mistaken, this seems intended to be the Pit, G.I. Joe's underground complex from Larry Hama's Marvel series. If so, however, the geography is wrong -- the base is stated as being located in California's Argus Mountains, while Hama's Pit was in the Arizona desert.

Body Count: Well, Spike describes the destruction of pretty much the entire human race, so there's that. Fortress Maximus also perished in the Megatron war. It can be inferred from Spike's story that Circuit Breaker and the Neo-Knights, Blackrock's anti-Decepticon super-team, probably died as well. At any rate, they're all owned by Marvel, so even if they didn't die, they won't appear in these pages.

My Thoughts: First -- I was wrong last week. Trailbreaker is called as such in this issue, so there's no rights problem with his name.

Other than the Autobots meeting the humans and Blackrock, not a lot happens in this issue. I suppose the main crux of the story is the scene where Optimus Prime admits to Hot Rod that he has indeed been more passive since his resurrection in G1 #80. He was happy in the afterlife, and being pulled from it did not please him. So he's spent twenty years pretending the peace between Autobots and Decepticons is for real, since peacetime is the next best thing to being dead.

Variant "retro" cover by Guido Guidi

Prime also orders Hot Rod to remain on Cybertron when he leaves for Earth to confront Megatron. Both seem to think this is the last time they will see one another, and Prime even foreshadows Hot Rod's evolution into Rodimus Prime by telling him that all the Autobots' hopes now rest with him. And it should be noted that although he never appeared in the American G1 comics, Rodimus was a fixture of the alternate future Furman frequently visited in his U.K. stories... so his appearance in REGENERATION ONE would not be unexpected.

Last note: the Autobots and humans alike wonder how Megatron was able to take control of human missile defense systems and use the technology aboard the Ark for his conquest of Earth when he'd never displayed such aptitude before. I could be grasping at straws, but I noticed one obvious exclusion from Megatron's zombie team: Shockwave, the brilliant Decepticon military strategist, was aboard the Ark when it crashed in G1. Seems likely his expertise could have aided Megatron, which begs the question: if he's at large, is he lobotomized as well, or did Megatron let him keep his mind to aid in the conquest of Earth?

Final Opinion: This issue felt a bit like treading water, mainly giving us a backstory to Megatron's invasion that we probably could have filled in ourselves -- but at the same time, it's also setting up the ultimate confrontation between Prime and Megatron -- and Prime is gonna be pissed!

(If you can believe it, the last time these two faced each other bot-to-bot in the American G1 comic continuity was in issue #24, from 1986 -- and even then, the battle took place in virtual reality, rather than the real world!)

Available as part of TRANSFORMERS: REGENERATION ONE, vol. 1 from Amazon.com.