TRANSFORMERS: DEVIATIONS

Written by: Brandon Easton | Art by: Priscilla Tramontano
Colors by: Priscilla Tramontano & John-Paul Bove | Letters by: Tom B. Long
Edits by: John Barber | Publisher: Ted Adams

Set in the TRANSFORMERS: GENERATION ONE cartoon continuity, this one-shot features a "What If?" scenario springing out of TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE -- how would the film's events have played out if Optimus Prime had not died defending Autobot City from Megatron?

Writer Brandon Easton posits that things would have turned out more or less the same as they originally did, but with several more characters dying than in the movie. The entire chain of events springs from a point in the movie where Optimus Prime has the upper hand on Megatron, but the impetuous Hot Rod interferes in their fight when he sees Megatron reaching for a gun out of Prime's view. Here, Kup holds Hot Rod back and Prime dodges Megatron's laser blast, then blows the Decepticon leader's head clean off.

With Megatron dead, he and his followers are not transformed into heralds of Unicorn, which means this world features no Galvatron, and thus Galvatron does not kill Starscream for usurping his command. But when Unicron shows up, as in the movie, to devour Cybertron, Starscream confronts him and is transformed instead, into "Megascream". Megascrem and his minions attack an Autobot shuttle en route to Cybertron and when Hot Rod attempts a dangerous maneuver to outwit the Decepticons, the vessel is destroyed, taking Ultra Magnus, Springer, Arcee, and Perceptor with it.

Hot Rod redeems himself in the end, however, by grabbing the Matrix of Leadership from an injured Optimus Prime and sacrificing himself to destroy both Megascream and Unicron with its power. Thus the great Cybertronian war is ended and Unicron is finished.