A Common Foe

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"A Common Foe"
Publisher	Fun Publications
First published	September 24, 2014 (online PDF version) April 7, 2016 (BotCon 2016 printed edition)
Writer	Jesse Wittenrich
Art	Josh Burcham
Layouts	David Reynolds
Letters	Jesse Wittenrich
Special Thanks	Karl Hartman, Benson Yee, Greg Sepelak, S. Trent Troop, and all our friends at Hasbro and BotCon
Creative Director	Lanny Lathem
Managing editor	Pete Sinclair
Editor in chief
Continuity	Wings Universe
Chronology	2013

Reinforcements from Earth arrive to turn the tide of the Machine Wars, as Autobots and Decepticons unite to save their homeworld.

Synopsis

Though surrounded by the clone armies of Jhiaxus, Obsidian and Strika refuse to surrender, and battle is resumed immediately. Octane is not very enthusiastic, given that the only reason he was there at all—Sandstorm—has just turned out to be a clone of his old friend, rather than the genuine article, and tries to voice his discontent to Acid Storm. Alas, the Seeker is deaf to his complaints and launches into the fight, ignoring Octane almost completely.

As the battle rages, the odds seem bad for Obsidian and Strika's forces, but it turns out that this has actually been Obsidian's plan all along—having communicated with the Autobot Earth commander Pyro five days prior, Obsidian discovered that the real Sandstorm was on Earth, and that the Sandstorm among his forces was a clone. Now that all of Jhiaxus's forces are gathered in one place, Obsidian activates the tiny spider-like serro-gyro mekarach that he had secretly planted on the Sandstorm clone, which disables the clone and draws on his energon supply to beam a pre-arranged signal to Earth. The signal is received at Autobot City, where Pyro orders two strike teams into the space bridge to provide reinforcements on Cybertron—the Autobot Alpha Team led by Rapido, and the Decepticon Bravo Team led by Serpentor, though Serpentor would rather the naming was the other way around. Upon arrival, they immediately seize the space bridge control room; Bravo Team is particularly enthusiastic about getting to vicariously beat up on the "big names" of Cybertronian history, even if it's just clones of them. Locating Jhiaxus takes priority, but Krok kills Soundwave before they can interrogate him.

Elsewhere, Megaplex is assailed by a voice within his head—the programming of the original Megatron, inherent in Megaplex as a clone of the Decepticon leader, has bubbled up within his subconscious. Inside his own mind, Megaplex battles with this manifestation of his template; Megatron claims that he merely allowed Jhiaxus to believe he had been buried, and that he has been biding his time all along, but Megaplex proves strong enough to overpower his progenitor, destroying him and finally freeing himself from Jhiaxus's control.

Meanwhile, teams Alpha and Bravo have sighted Jhiaxus, but are unable to fight their way through his clone legions. While Alpha Team stays to hold the clones off, Bravo Team follows Nacelle to what he believes in a secret passage that will allow them to circumvent the battlefield. The passage turns out to be much smaller than he realized, but that proves no problem for Krok's partner Gatoraider, who slithers inside and blows the passageway open wide enough for the larger 'bots to follow him inside.

As Jhiaxus surveys the ongoing battle, Hubcap observes how resistance has managed to confine their forces to Iacon and suggests having Prowl formulate a new strategy. Jhiaxus instructs him to wait, intrigued by a series of unexpected scenes that play out before him: Bitstream helping get an injured Backstreet to safety; Mirage and Electro facing a platoon of Skywarp drones when their attempt to ambush Skywarp fails, only for them to be aided by a team of Decepticons, including Oilmaster, grown to gigantic size by Magnificus's macroscope; and Strika coming to Octane's rescue against some Thundercracker drones, convincing the Decepticon to join the fight at last. Jhiaxus's observations are interrupted as Bravo Team bursts from a nearby vent, and Serpentor engages him directly. Jhiaxus fells Serpentor with a single swipe, but as he looms over the fallen Decepticon, impressed by his Earth-made body, Serpentor releases his partners Gob and Zad, who merge into his Serpent Scepter, with which he impales Jhiaxus. Just then, Nacelle belatedly emerges from the vent and finds himself staring down the barrel of Hubcap's gun, but before the clone can pull the trigger, the wounded Jhiaxus staggers over and orders him to lower his weapon. Although he has not accomplished his goal through the means he intended, Jhiaxus explains, he has nonetheless achieved success: the Autobots and Decepticons have cast aside their animosity, as he always desired, and banded together to fight him. Satisfied with this achievement, Jhiaxus surrenders... but just as Serpentor cuffs him, Megaplex charges onto the scene and impales Jhiaxus on his blades, slaying him. Megaplex rants that the Decepticons can now take Cybertron for their own once again, but the Decepticons of Bravo Team prove they have no desire for that to be their future as they subdue him.

One week later, at Autobot City on Earth, the assembled representatives of the Autobots, Decepticons, and Jhiaxus's clones signed a peace treaty to formally declare the end of the Great War—though Scourge is unsure what the presently-offline Galvatron will think of things when he recovers. Obsidian and Strika have disappeared, not wanting their presence to remind the public of the war, something that Clamp Down is not unhappy about.

Somewhere else, the Predacons, having no tolerance for this talk of peace, have joined up with Sky-Byte and recovered a selection of clone chambers from Jhiaxus's secondary lab. As they begin the process of thawing out the 'bots who will form their new army, Tantrum observes four pods that are different from the rest. Sky-Byte is unable to explain them, but the Predacon isn't particularly concerned... even as one of the pods begins to open, and Tarantulas emerges!

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Notes

• Characters mentioned but not seen include: Megatron, Shockwave, the original Starscream, Springer, Optimus Prime, Galvatron, and Cyclonus.
• Characters mentioned in Krok's profile include: Megatron, Double Punch, and Gatoraider.
  • Krok's original occupation as a mecha-soccer player from his tech specs are reference here; it's revealed he played for Polyhex City.
  • Krok's personality has done more to win wars than a "battalion of Blitz Engines"; Blitz Engines were seen in Regeneration One.
  • Gatoraider's bite can snap through solid tritanium; while tritanium is a real metal, it probably refers to the metal mentioned in various pieces of Transformers fiction by Simon Furman.
• Characters mentioned in Serpent O.R.'s profile include: a washed-out terrorist, four Autobots (Rodimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Arcee, and Springer), a Sweep, General Clayton "Hawk" Abernathy, Gob, Zad, and Scourge.
  • Serpent O.R. was reformatted from the remains of a Sweep, found by Old Snake. Old Snake's previous experiments with Transformers were seen in "Only Human".
  • Serpent O.R.s connection to Cobra Commander was also seen in the third Devil's Due Publishing G.I. Joe crossover, The Art of War, where the "Serpent O.R." name originates. This version of Cobra Commander had less success controlling him, however...or perhaps more, considering that the other Cobra Commander ended up brain dead..
  • The original Serpentor had Sgt. Slaughter's DNA uploaded after he prevented Cobra from using Sun Tzu's, as seen in the five part episode of the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon, "Arise, Serpentor, Arise!" Similarly, Serpent O.R. has Hawk's engrams accidentally uploaded, leaving him with a sense of morality. Hawk is revealed to have founded the Earth Defense Command; the EDC's lead agent, Marissa Faireborn, was implied to be the daughter of G.I. Joe's Flint.
  • Serpent O.R.'s twin-barreled Strike attack gun comes from the original Serpentor's Air Chariot, which was armed with twin Strike attack guns.
  • Other memories Serpent O.R. has include crossing the Alps on elephant back (from Carthaginian military leader Hannibal), outflanking the Maginot Line (from some Nazi general, probably), and crossing the Rubicon (from Roman military leader Julius Caesar).
• Characters mentioned in Carzap's profile include: Rapido.
  • Carzap was created at the Blackrock Corporate "Block Town" facility in Tsubuka, Japan. Blackrock Enterprises was a company from Marvel's The Transforner comic, and Carzap comes with a Kreon of company CEO G.B. Blackrock. Block Town was the toyline under which Carzap (or rather, Windbreaker, who the toy was originally intend to be) was supposed to be sold under before being cancelled.
  • Carzap use to race on the Dia Speedway, named for pre-Transformers toyline Diaclone.
  • Carzap was nicknamed "Ame-no-habakiri" due to his agility, taken from a sword owned by Susanoo, a figure from Japanese mythology.
• Characters mentioned in Tarantulas' profile include: Jhiaxus, Sky-Byte, and his Arachnoids.
  • The Arachnoid's pincher modes are made of duranium, a metal from Star Trek.

Continuity notes

• Acid Storm was last seen in The Transformers episode "Divide and Conquer". Blue Bacchus was mentioned in "The Coming Storm: Part 3", a former Decepticon Warlord who was captured by the Elite Guard. He ended up a lot better off than some of the others...
• Nacelle tries to lead his to a tunnel used by the Female Autobots back in "The Search for Alpha Trion". However, he accidentally leads them to the one Spike Witwicky and Carly used to escape Shockwave in "Desertion of the Dinobots, Part 2" instead.
• Rapido's whole "You abducted my father" bit (see real-world references below) refers to when Jhiaxus' forces kidnapped Hi-Q, one of the head scientist on the Second Generation project, back in the "A Flash Forward" storyline.

Transformers references

• Lots of "virtual" redecos, repurposings and toy-accurate drawings in this issue:
  • Acid Storm is in his Universe body.
  • Sandstorm is in his Generations "Thrilling 30" body.
  • Rotorstorm is a virtual retool of Generations Fall of Cybertron Vortex. See a full body view here.
  • Eagle Eye is a virtual retool of Generations "Thrilling 30" Armada Starscream.
  • Turbofire is a virtual retool of Generations "Thrilling 30" Trailcutter.
  • Blue Bacchus is a virtual retool of Transformers: Hunt for the Decepticons Tomahawk. See a full body view here.
  • Nightracer is a virtual redeco of Generations "Thrilling 30" Tailgate. As it would turn out, she was the secret figure of the third TFSS.
• After briefly appearing last issue as identical to Skywarp, the Skywarp drones now use a design based on the original Machine Wars Skywarp toy, previously created by Josh Burcham for a fan project. Megaplex's "inner Megatron" uses a design from the same project, actually based on the original Megaplex figure, due to the common belief that his and Megatron's toys were accidentally swapped.
• The mental Megatron calls himself the "Scrap-Maker," a sanitized version of the "Slag-Maker" nickname from Megatron's original The Transformers Universe profile.
• Like other Earth-born Autobots in this continuity, Rapido has a surname. Here we learn it is 'Depressa', a Portuguese word meaning 'fast' (just as his forename does in Spanish). Additionally, the United EX "Racemaster" version of Rapido used a Depressa drone as one of his limbs.
• Nacelle uses milli-hics, presumably from the same system as hics, a unit of measurement from Marvel UK text story "The Magnificent Six!"
• A Cybertronian rat seen in the space bridge complex is based on Transmetal Rattrap's "vehicle" mode, sans tail and all red.
• Oilmaster refers to Magnificus as being Mebian; Mebion was the Cybertronian settlement ruled by Magnificus in his original e-HOBBY toy bio. Indeed, Oilmaster and Magnificus being partnered up at all is a reference to "Badlands", the e-HOBBY comic that paired them off in the first place, which was also available through the Collectors' Club.
• Krok notes that Gatoraider's species comes from the Rust Sea, a location on Cybertron originally mentioned in the Marvel UK letter's page.
• Gob and Zad are two Arms Microns from the Japanese release Prime toyline; specifically, they're depicted her with their pink coloration.
• When talking over scenes of the battlefield, Serpent O.R. and Jhiaxus' speech bubbles are rendered with a triangle in their two main colors on the left side of the speech bubble, as the Decepticon's were in the Marvel Generation 2 comic.
• Hubcap promises to make Jhiaxus' body into magificent architecture-referring to his...very creepy activities in his original tech specs.
• The document signed at the story's close is written in "Ancient Autobot", a language created by Jim Sorenson based on some characters seen in The Transformers episode "Cosmic Rust. Translating what is visible reveals that it is the Pax Cybertronia, the peace treaty that the Beast Wars cartoon established was signed at the war's end.
• In a twist on a popular Furmanism, Rapido says that the war "es completo. ¡Terminado!" ("It's over, finished!")
• That the Predacons should have fallen in with Sky-Byte is not too much of a surprise, as they are all creations of the Quintessons in this continuity. Together, it is implied that they are founding the faction which will become the Predacons of the Beast Wars era; not the first time that the original Predacon sub-group has been credited as the originators of the faction, as they also were in BotCon 2006's "Dawn of Future's Past". In this continuity, Sky-Byte is the first to wear the insectoid insignia that the group will later adopt as their sigil.
• The first two 'bots shown to emerge from clone chambers are Generation 1 incarnations of Robots in Disguise Dark Scream and Slapper, appearing here alongside Sky-Byte as a nod towards their counterparts' roles as subordinates of that universe's Sky-Byte. This isn't the first time Slapper has made a Generation 1 continuity appearance, having put in an unnamed cameo in "Wreckers: Finale Part II".
• Tarantulas's appearance here forges a connection between him and Jhiaxus's "second generation", which was one potential origin that Larry DiTillio and Bob Forward toyed with for the character; the Beast Wars cartoon only ever had him note that he had "different origins" to the Autobots and Decepticons, in the episode "Other Victories". The fact that his pod is singled out as mysterious, though, leaves the question of his true nature open; other stories have connected him to Unicron. The other three pods, meanwhile, are obviously intended to contain the Tripredacus Council, who were stated to share Tarantulas's enigmatic origins.

Real-life references

• After Serpentor boasts that Bravo Team is better than Alpha Team, Carzap exclaims, "Nani?", one way in Japanese to say "What?"
• Rapido paraphases Inigo Montoya's famous quote from the 1987 fantasy adventure film The Princess Bride (in Spanish!) while covering Serpentor and his team's retreat.
• The panel of a Skywarp drone's gun being shot out of its hand references the famous title sequence of Batman: The Animated Series.
• Serpent O.R. proclaims "this I command" while stabbing Jhiaxus, the classic Serpentor's catchphrase in the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero cartoon.
• The Pax Cybertronia ends with "By Grabthar's Hammer!", a quote from the 1999 comedy movie Galaxy Quest.

Other notes

• This comic functions as an advertisement for five of the six standard toys in the third series of Fun Publications' subscription service.
• This issue was released as an online exclusive, free on the Collectors' Club website. Although labelled issue #9, it was released a few months after #10.
  • After numerous fan requests, full physical copies of the comic were made available at BotCon 2016.
• The story is followed by profiles of Krok, Serpentor, Carzap, and Tarantulas.
• The Prowl clone's "pool balls" all have different numbers and colors. Cute.

Covers

• Serpentor, Carzap, and Krok stand over the fallen Jhiaxus, with images of Optimus Prime and Galvatron in the background, looking confused.

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References

External links

• Timelines #9 at the Official Transformers Collectors' Club