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A Sunrise Dark

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OP24 cvrA.jpg
"A Sunrise Dark"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published October 17, 2018
Cover date September 2018
Written by John Barber
Art by Andrew Griffith (pg 1-2, 8-9, 13, 19-20) & Sara Pitre-Durocher (pg 3-7, 10-12, 14-18)
Colors by Josh Burcham
Letters by Tom B. Long
Editor David Mariotte
Continuity 2005 IDW continuity
Chronology Current era

Personal conflicts must be set aside as the threat of Unicron looms over the Earth.

Contents

Synopsis

This story is told in nonlinear form. This synopsis presents it in chronological order for ease of reading.

In Hollywood, Thundercracker is rushing to complete the edit of his new movie, a biopic about the life of G.I. Joe agent Chuckles, before he responds to Marissa Faireborn's call for assistance, when he is interrupted by the frenzied barking of Buster. Looking out the window, it's impossible for Thundercracker to miss what she's barking at: the planet-sized robot mode of Unicron now hovers above the Earth, its gravity causing all sorts of havoc in the streets below. Editing can wait—Thundercracker's got people to help!

Out in space, the Peaceful Revolution approaches Earth. Prowl wonders why Unicron is only hovering, rather than immediately eating the planet as it has with all the worlds that came before it. Stardrive believes she has the answer; Unicron is waiting for all its enemies to gather on the planet, so it can kill them all at once.

At Mount Rushmore, news reporter Sofía Orozco and her cameraman arrive on the scene to report on the Cybertronian battle that has just occurred there. Spike and Talon try to bar her way, but Jazz—despite his own bad past experiences with Orozco—suggests they let her through, as the media has a right to know what's going on. Jazz leads the new arrivals over to Marissa Faireborn, who is on the phone with the President learning about the arrival via Spacebridge of Optimus Prime and the entire remaining population of Cybertron and its colonies in Africa. Presently, Soundwave, Arcee, and Rom arrive as Prime's envoys, and each group quickly brings the other up to speed on recent events: Gimlet's death at the hands of Slug during Slide's attempt to rescue Jazz from the humans, and Unicron's consumption of Cybertron and all its colony worlds. A furious Flint doubts that the Transformers have any interest in saving Earth from this world-eating threat; Slug counters that the new generation of protoforms still in the process of coming online within Trypticon are now natives of Earth, so obviously they will fight to defend their new homeworld, but neither Flint nor Slide is convinced. Sensing that Flint's extreme anger is due to the loss of another life beyond that of Gimlet's, Soundwave is horrified to discover that his own human friend, Mainframe, also perished during the fight. Cradling the human's body, Soundwave is overcome with grief, and his psychoempathic powers run out of control, broadcasting his feelings and memories as an electronic "scream" of anguish. The "broadcast" spans the entire country—back in Hollywood, it even shows up on the phone of police officer Reggie Winslow's partner, as they work with Thundercracker to save lives during the Unicron-induced chaos—and serves as proof to many doubting humans that Cybertronians are just as much living, feeling beings as they are.

When the ground around Mount Rushmore suddenly begins to tremble beneath everyone's feet, Jazz fears the end has arrived... but it's not the end, it's just the Peaceful Revolution, which has accidentally warped underground thanks to Goldbug's dodgy piloting, and now bursts up out of the dirt. Jazz is not happy to see Prowl, based on what happened the last time he showed his face, but Prowl insists that they have to put their own animosities aside and stand together if they are going to survive Unicron. The group agrees, and Jazz, Slide, and the colonists board the Peaceful Revolution so they can all rejoin Optimus in Africa.

Six hours later, at the Transformers' African camp, Slide recounts the events that went down at Mount Rushmore for Optimus Prime. Of course, Slide finds a way to turn every word out of Optimus's mouth back against him; she accuses him of not caring about Gimlet's death; chastizies him for not coming to Mount Rushmore himself; expresses her disgust at the way Soundwave's grief has been weaponized to benefit human/Cybertronian relations; and finally, concludes that the way Prime has, via proxies and mouthpieces rather than his own actions, united Cybertron, the colonies, and Earth against the common enemy that is Unicron is fascism, rather than benevolence. After Slide storms off, Prime takes a moment to speak with Jazz, apologizing to him for abandoning him to the mercy of the humans all those months ago—for as Slide has made him realize, standing aside and not choosing a side in a conflict... is still making a choice.

A little later, Prime and Arcee stare up at the looming form of Unicron. The events of the day seem to prove that there is no way Prime can win; history has shown how the Cybertronian race has always turned against itself, and how the same seems to be happening even though they are now confronted with the greatest threat they have ever known, and Prime wonders if it is his leadership that has led things to this point. Arcee isn't sure; the best advice she has is for them to try to love who they can, and understand those they can't. Prime doubts the power of love holds the key to saving the day, but as Arcee walks away, she pauses just long enough to point out—it can't hurt. Left alone, Optimus gazes into the night sky and reflects on the tarnished legacy of the Primes—a lineage of failures at its best, and of dictators and despots at its worst. Optimus has always believed himself different from all the Primes who came before him, someone who really was the force for good that his predecessors purported to be, and which legend has romanticized the "Prime" title to stand for. But now, as he looks upon where he has led his race, he wonders... has the seemingly-inevitable legacy of failure and corruption that has seen every other Prime become a leader who forced their will upon others in the name of what they believed to be the greater good... claimed him as well?

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Humans Other Cybertronians Others

G.I. Joe

Others

Space Knights

Junkions

Quotes

"Why'd ya jump us underground?"
"I didn't do it on purpose. I was aiming for moderate density... what's this planet made out of, dirt?"
"Most planets are."
"Well pardon me for not being as well-traveled as you."

—Garnak and Goldbug


"Prowl?! What the hell are you doing here? Last time we saw you, you were staging a coup."
"First off, that's a really biased description of events. Since then I stopped a bunch of titans from—Nevermind. I'd have sent a postcard if that's what I was after."

—Jazz and Prowl have different ideas of what happened in the Combiner Wars


"We fought so long, we didn't notice we got old. Didn't notice we got kids now, that need to live in the world we fought to make... not one we fought an' destroyed."

—Jazz


"Left to our own devices, we tear ourselves apart. But when we confront the ultimate force of destruction? We still tear ourselves apart. Did I lead us down the wrong path? Was Pyra Magna right about me?"
"I don't know. Maybe all we can do is try to love who we can and understand who we can't. But again... look who you're talking to."
"I... I don't know that love can save the day."
"I guess if I learned one thing in my time being a relic, it's that... love can't hurt."

—Optimus Prime and Arcee

Notes

Continuity notes

  • As with the previous two issues, the title of this story is a line from the Dark Cybertron prophecy.
  • Chronologically, this main body of issue occurs immediately after the end of Unicron #4, while the story's framing sequence (Slide recounting those events to Optimus) takes place somewhere during Unicron #5. Slide's group is not shown rejoining the main Cybertronian force in Africa with Jazz and Prowl's crew in this issue; that happens on-panel in Unicron #5.
  • Thundercracker has been working on the screenplay for his biopic of Chuckles since learning about him from Chameleon in issue #3, and actually got the contract to make the film in the 2018 Optimus Prime annual. His story is based on the events of "The Last Laugh," the extended Chuckles story-arc from IDW's Cobra comic books, and we previously saw some of his "adaptation" in the annual. The portion of the story seen here is Thundercracker's re-working of 2009's Cobra vol. 1 #3; in the real course of events, Chuckles was forced to actually kill Jinx, but Thundercracker has re-written the story so he kills Xamot and saves her life instead. Thundercracker has previously shown awareness of sexist tropes (like Jinx's "fridging") in issue #3, and he's clearly trying to go against them!
  • A billboard for Thundercracker's prior film, Starscream: The Movie, can be seen amongst the debris of Los Angeles.
  • Stardrive believes Unicron is giving the Transformers time to come together so it can kill them all at once, but Unicron #5 indicates that it is holding back its attack until the Talisman is removed from Earth, since, if Unicron eats the planet while the Talisman is on it, it will die.
  • Artist Andrew Griffith's double-page spread of the Cybertronians refugees in Africa on pages 8–9 is an homage to the double-page spread of Iacon and its new NAIL inhabitants that he drew way back in the first issue of Robots in Disguise. Two generics from that scene even reappear here: a multi-limbed grey-and-yellow 'bot consulting a datapad, and a silver worm-like 'bot, though the former's colors look somewhat different compared to his first appearance (which might be due to the different lighting in both panels).
  • Tiring of Starscream's sniping, Aileron threatens to punch him, remarking that Arcee "isn't the only one" capable of it. Arcee socked Starscream one in Unicron #4.
  • Soundwave unleashing an uncontrollable "sonic scream" that disrupts and overrides broadcasts in a moment of anguish was seen before in All Hail Megatron #9, when he did the same upon finding Rumble wounded.
  • Flint initially assumes Prowl and his crew are "more of those things that attacked Scarlett and the rest of the Joes," referring to the Maximals who attacked the Joes' Lemuria headquarters in Unicron #2's back-up story.
  • Jazz remembers Prowl attempting to "stage a coup," a "really biased description" (as Prowl puts it) of the events of Combiner Wars. Prowl counters that since then, he stopped a fleet of Titans from attacking Cybertron, as seen in More than Meets the Eye #56-57. Of course, he really only delayed them, as the attack wound up happening in Till All Are One #5 anyway.
  • Prime apologizes to Jazz for leaving him "to the mercies of the humans," which took place in issue #7, when Prime left Earth for Cybertron so that he would deliberately be absent when Jazz was apprehended by G.I. Joe, and could therefore avoid having to make a the difficult political choice between siding with Jazz or the humans.
  • Prime's monologue at the end of the issue is lifted almost verbatim from issue #1; his memory of Cybertron as a "tarnished jewel," on the other hand, was a turn of phrase first used in the 2012 Robots in Disguise annual, and recently used by Shockwave — in his "Onyx Prime" alter-ego — during issue #15.

Real-life references

Errors

  • The Cybertronian refugee camp at Victoria Falls is slightly different in this issue; Unicron depicted Metroplex and the other survivors as having arrived at the top of the falls, while here, they're shown to be making camp at the base of the waterfall.

Other trivia

  • Originally solicited for release in September 2018, this issue arrived noticeably late, halfway through October, six weeks after the already-delayed previous issue.

Covers (3)

  • Cover A: Slug by Kei Zama and Josh Burcham
  • Cover B: Sofía Orozco reports on Jazz and Slide's fight, with G.I. Joe caught in the middle, by Andrew Griffith and Joana Lafuente
  • Retailer incentive cover: Zama's black-and-white lineart from Cover A
  • OP24 cvrA.jpg
  • OP24 cvrB.jpg
  • OP24 cvrRI.jpg

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