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Ghost Stories

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The Church of the Ultimate Shelfwarmer.
"Ghost Stories"
Publisher IDW Publishing
First published March 8, 2017
Cover date February 2017
Written by John Barber
Art by Priscilla Tramontano
Colors by Thomas Deer (framing sequence, pgs 1-4, 20-21, 37-40), Josh Perez (Bumblebee story, pg 5-19), John-Paul Bove (Pyra story, pg 22-38)
Letters by Chris Mowry
Editor Carlos Guzman
Continuity 2005 IDW continuity
Chronology Current era (framing sequence), Zeta Prime era (Bumblebee story), indeterminate past (Pyra story)

Optimus Prime tells Pyra Magna the story of how he met Bumblebee, while Pyra tells him the tale of how she came to lead the Torchbearers.

Contents

Synopsis

Hoping to put aside his differences with Pyra Magna, Optimus Prime asks her to join him in travelling to Cybertron. Their arrival is detected by Starscream, who secretly follows them as they head out to the Sea of Rust. With the "ghost" of Bumblebee offering his usual annoyingly-upbeat commentary all the while, Starscream watches as Optimus and Pyra regard the miniature singularity at the heart of the Sea of Rust, created from the collapse of Crystal City, and begin to talk of the past. At Pyra's request, Optimus tells her the story of how he met Bumblebee, who died on that same spot...

One of the last generation of forged Transformers, the friendly and popular Bumblebee works as a courier, and enjoys attending the races with his friends Cliffjumper and Hubcap. When his sleep becomes disturbed by horrible nightmares of the undead, his work and life suffer, until he realizes that the dreams are pointing the way to a particular location on Cybertron. There, hidden away in some wreckage, Bumblebee discovers a box. Afraid that nobody will believe him, or worse, that they will think him insane and abandon him, he keeps his discovery a secret and follows the directions of his dreams to deliver the box to the Iaconian civics center. This strange, supernatural "courier job" done, life seems to return to normal for the little 'bot... until the nightmares begin again, and he finds himself direct to locate and deliver more and more strange packages. Things finally come to a head when one of his "deliveries" turns out to be a bomb that destroys the Tygun factory.

Bumblebee immediately turns himself into the authorities and explains everything that has been happening, but is naturally met with some skepticism from officer Prowl. Orion Pax is more sympathetic, however, and as Bumblebee begins to suffer a waking nightmare, Orion takes him in his arms and comforts him, telling him that he believes him and will help. At Prowl's request, Jetfire scans the room and deduces that Bumblebee is not "dreaming"—the visions are actually being projected into his mind by a subtle high-frequency signal. Inspired by Orion's words, Bumblebee is determined to accompany the two officers as they track the signal back to its source.

The signal turns out to be the work of Shockwave, broadcast into Bumblebee's brain by Soundwave. When Orion, Prowl, and Bumblebee locate the Decepticons' bolthole, battle breaks out, and the two officers are surprised to see Bumblebee charge right into the fray, tackling Soundwave despite never having been in combat before. 'Bee accuses Soundwave of betraying the Decepticons' vow to fight "for the people"; Soundwave repulses him with a sonic blast and evacuates the self-destructing facility alongside Shockwave, Ferak, and Ravage, but Bumblebee's words have struck home—Soundwave vows to change minds only through reason, not trickery, in the future. Orion, Prowl, and Bumblebee escape the burning building, and Bumblebee, having seen the good that can be done when people help and look out for one another, requests to join Orion's security force.

As Starscream rolls his eyes at the saccharine moral of Bumblebee's "origin story," Optimus points out its relevance to his and Pyra's situation, as 'Bee learned the importance of working with others and not believing you are the only one with answers. Pyra has her own counterpoint: what if you are the one with the answer, but nobody will listen? To illustrate, she tells Optimus her own history...

Long ago on Caminus, Pyra serves as a member of the Torchbearers under team leader Praesidia Magna. Responding to a call for help from the desolate mining town of Parvus Oppidum to defend it against raids by bandit marauders, the group is met by natives Jumpstream and her Conjunx Endura, Torchbearer fangirl Dust Up. Dust Up takes Pyra to a subterranean storehouse to show her the town's meager energon reserves, and explains that she killed one of the bandits herself during their last attack, but before Pyra can examine the body, a call from Praesidia alerts her to the marauders' return. Pyra speeds back to the surface, but is not fast enough to prevent the strange, animal-form attackers from killing Praesidia and their fellow Torchbearer Fastbreak. With her final breath, Praesidia calls a warning to Pyra, alerting her to the appearance of a winged monster, the largest and most powerful of the attackers, which seizes Pyra in its claws. As the battle continues, the ground begins to crumble under the combatants' feet and a strange black sphere emerges from beneath the town—a singularity that begins drawing in everything around it. Jumpstream, Dust Up, and the other Torchbearers get as many to safety as they can, but Pyra is still locked in combat with the creature, which proves so impossibly strong that it can even fight the singularity's pull. Pyra looks the beast in the eyes and blacks out.

Pyra comes to some time later to find that the town has been destroyed, and that the monsters and the singularity have disappeared. Haunted by her failure, she suffers a nightmare in which the winged monster returns, reciting an ancient poem from a Camien religious text that speaks of a far off world of rust. Perturbed, Pyra seeks solace in companionship and begins spending time with fellow Torchbearer Rust Dust, whose name is derived from that same poem, and whose optimistic personality proves a counter to Pyra's current downheartedness. As the dreams continue, the world spoken of in the poem appears before Pyra in her dreams—a dead world of rust deserts, orbiting a black singularity-star, where Praesidia Magna begs for help, beseeching Pyra not to "leave her like Antilla." Pyra asks the Mistress of Flame for insight, lying and claiming that "Antilla" was the last word Praesidia said in life; the Mistress explains that Antilla was a dead colony world she and Praesidia once found, consumed by rust. The Mistress is saddened to hear Praesidia died with such sorrow in her heart, but accepts it as the will of the Primes... something that Pyra herself finds she has trouble with. The nightmares do not relent, but as Pyra is forced to watch as the monster kills Praesidia over and over, the identity of this "black angel" becomes apparent at last—it is none other than Onyx Prime, lord of beasts, one of the legendary Thirteen Primes of Cybertron. This revelation leads Pyra to a further epiphany: if it truly was Onyx she fought in Parvus Oppidum, and he and his beasts fled while she was unconscious—fled because he feared further combat—that means that the Primes cannot be the infallible deities Camien religion claims.

Now filled with new purpose, Pyra seeks to rebuild the Torchbearers into their six-strong configuration in order to pursue her new goals, and visits Dust Up to confirm some suspicions. The attacker Dust Up killed was one of a pair; she deliberately let the other go so it could lead the other marauders back to Parvus Oppidum, then called the Torchbearers, confident they could stop them all. Pyra decides to bring Dust Up and Jumpstream into the Torchbearers to replace Praesidia and Fastbreak, and Pyra herself ascends to the leadership role as "Pyra Magna," ready to stand against the coming danger posed by the Primes—even if it means going against the Mistress.

Optimus Prime realizes he has heard similar warnings to Pyra's from Garrison Blackrock and Galvatron which indicate that Onyx Prime is indeed still alive and soon to return, though he still struggles to accept that Pyra's belief in her cause is rooted in little more than a dream and a poem. Pyra repeats her previous accusation that Optimus is a user of belief, rather than a believer himself; Optimus admits that while he is not religious, he still believes the lived experiences of others, and takes Pyra at her word. The pair make an uneasy peace, with Optimus promising to try and not let his past deeds weigh on him if Pyra will not let the future she believes is destined to come to pass weigh on her. Starscream, meanwhile, scoffs at the whole thing and takes his leave before they can spot him, dismissing dreams and hallucinations—like the "ghost" of Bumblebee—as just figments of one's imagination, created by guilt, fear, and doubt.

Or are they? For, little does Starscream realize, deep within the Sea of Rust's singularity, Crystal City still stands... and Bumblebee still lives.

Featured characters

All characters bar Optimus, Pyra, Bumblebee, and Starscream appear only in the flashback stories. Listings below reflect other characters' allegiances at the time the stories takes place.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots Decepticons Maximals Others

Quotes

"You're as curious as I am to see if Optimus is poking around with that Camien lunatic."
"For a guy hearing voices of the dead, you've got a pretty insensitive view of mental health."

—Starscream and Bumblebee


"I don't know who you are - but you look like you could use a hand!"
"Oh, no - he's one of those guys. The kind that quips."

—Bumblebee meets Shockwave, and Prowl is disappointed


"'Stronger together than apart'. Ugh."
"What?"
"It's so... squooshey. Who talks that way?"
"I don't know—nice people?"

—Starscream and Bumblebee


"If Cybertron be your home
Far away, never roam
Hear my message, listen and fear
Danger comes, the end is near
Just like us, you soon will rust
All shall be turned to dust."

—Onyx Prime recites a passage from the Light of the Forgefire


"I understood the Way of Flame. But now I understood more. The hexagonal lattice of Solus Prime's Forge begat the Star Saber, which begat the Matrix. But I was the light of the Forge made manifest. All I needed was my lattice. We six were stronger together than apart. And I understood—what is the opposite of flame... of light... but onyx?"

—Pyra Magna


"I know you're my imagination. You're my way of dealing with the guilt of killing Metalhawk... my fear that Megatron will come back... and my self-doubt that now I have what I always wanted, I'll screw it up. You had Cybertron and you lost it. Of course I'd imagine you giving me advice, Bumblebee. Then I know to do just the opposite."

—Starscream

Notes

Continuity notes

  • First appearances: Optimus Primal, Beast Megatron, Praesidia Magna
  • Earliest chronological appearances: Bumblebee, Seaspray, Ferak, Pyra, Stormclash, Fastbreak, Skyburst, Rust Dust, Jumpstream, Dust Up
  • The events of this story take place following issue #8 of the Optimus Prime series (which shows Optimus and Pyra embarking for Cybertron through Metrotitan's Spacebridge). Prime makes reference to him and Pyra Magna "turning to anger too quickly"; they had a bust-up in issue #4, in which Pyra accused Optimus of using others' beliefs for his own purposes... though Pyra's continued manipulation of Slide suggests that she's not entirely burying the hatchet with Prime. The Bumblebee story likewise takes place after the flashback story about Orion, Prowl, and Jetfire told through those six issues, and prior to the events of Autocracy.
  • Bumblebee, of course, died at Shockwave's hands (er, hand) in Robots in Disguise #27, and his body disappeared into the singularity created by the collapse of Crystal City in Dark Cybertron Finale. Since appearing to Starscream as a "ghost"/hallucination (from The Transformers #44 onward), 'Bee has been in his War for Cybertron design (used for the first 16 issues of Robots in Disguise), but by the time of his "death", he had been modified into his "Goldfire" design, which is how he appears on the last page of this issue.
  • Bumblebee is noted to be one of the "last generation forged before the primal wellspring ran dry", referring to the cessation of hot spot ignitions that was established to have happened at some point in Cybertron's past in More than Meets the Eye #19. However, see "Errors".
  • Jumpstream and Dust Up are revealed to be Conjunx Endura. They also sported distinct color schemes prior to joining the Torchbearers.
  • Bumblebee warns Scrounge not to spend the cash he gives him on Simultronic, a kind of addictive virtual reality seen in Spotlight: Blurr. That issue also introduced the racetracks and Blurr's occupation as a celebrity racer, also seen in this issue.
  • Soundwave is shown to have a face beneath his helmet; we knew this already from his earliest chronological appearance in Robots in Disguise #22.
  • Decepticon engineer Ferak previously appeared on-panel in Last Stand of the Wreckers. He is impressed by Shockwave's "nightmare transmitter"; this alludes to his eventual creation of the Nightmare Engine, a construct mentioned in his Last Stand profile and several further times in subsequent stories, which evidently saw him refine the single-target system of this story into a wider-ranging weapon.
  • Back when Optimus and Victorion first met, in The Transformers #47, Victorion remarked she "understood fighting against impossible odds", an odd remark from a combiner who hadn't actually done anything major before then, especially not facing anything that could be regarded as impossible. From the looks of it, Pyra Magna's dramatic encounter with Onyx Prime would be those impossible odds (unless Pyra Magna has some other incredibly dramatic incident from her past she's not sharing).
  • Pyra's dream is not unique: in The Transformers #47, Garrison Blackrock revealed that he too had dreamed of a "black angel" who showed him "a world of rust deserts orbiting an infinite darkness." Optimus Prime refers to Blackrock's warning, and to that delivered by Galvatron in issue #55 that Onyx Prime would soon return...
  • Back in the Combiner Hunters one-shot, the Torchbearers' first combination into Victorion allowed Jumpstream to learn a secret that Dust Up had been keeping from her. We weren't told what it was at the time, and this issue does not explicitly state it, but logically, Jumpstream must have learned about Dust Up's role in the events of this story.

Transformers references

  • The idea that Bumblebee was one of the last generation of Transformers born before Cybertron ceased to yield new life seems to be derived from the backstory of the "Aligned" version of the character, whose similar origins were noted in the Exodus novel.
  • A Transformers: Prime Vehicon can be spotted among the crowd at the raceway. Other familiar body-types in the crowds include a red Conehead and a purple and black memory stick.
  • A Sound Wave toy from Animated is seen among the garbage on page 9, panel 3.
  • The Tygun factory shares its name with the Tygun Span, a roadway featured in Dreamwave Productions' War Within: The Dark Ages comic.
  • Ferak's appearance is based directly on his Botcon 2014 Timelines action figure, a redeco of Universe Cyclonus, which was itself inspired by how similar to Cyclonus Ferak appeared in Last Stand of the Wreckers. It all comes back around!
  • Jumpstream's pre-Torchbearer colors are based on those of Gingham, while Dust Up's are based on Holi (presumably as a nod to the relationship between Holi and Clipper, who Gingham resembles).
  • The creatures the Torchbearers' battle seem like deliberate references to Beast Wars characters—and moreover, to specific Beast Wars characters who had not yet appeared in the 2005 IDW continuity. There's a rhino (Rhinox, who, in fact, we know was an ancient member of Onyx Prime's tribe in IDW continuity from Robots in Disguise #34), a bat and a gorilla (both forms of Optimus Primal), and an alligator and a theropod dinosaur (both forms of Megatron). The presence of a bull-like creature is the only thing that breaks the "major Beast Wars character" theme. Barber and Tramontano indicated on Twitter that Primal the gorilla and Megatron the dinosaur were called for in the script while the others are generics.[1]
  • The sword used by Pyra during her battle with Onyx, which can later be seen hanging on the wall of her room, is a smaller version of the sword that comes with Victorion's toy. Its inclusion in the story makes it appear to be Pyra's personal weapon in comic continuity, instead of the combined form of the Torchbearers' individual weapons as it is with the toys. Chalk it up to artistic license, as the release of Optimus Prime #5 the following week shows Pyra Magna wielding her cudgel/axe as her personal weapon. Later in the story, the Torchbearers combine into Victorion, who is then shown with her sword.
  • A former member of the Torchbearers named "Crash Test" is mentioned. This was a preliminary name for Dust Up, and was seen in use in an early version of a panel from Combiner Hunters shown during a presentation at San Diego Comic Con 2015.
  • Both the colony world of Antilla and the poem that Onyx Prime recites are derived from the Generation 1 cartoon episode "Cosmic Rust." The poem is inscribed on the Torchbearers' toys; when it is recited on page 36, each line appears in the same panel as the character on whose toy it is written (but see "Errors").

Real-life references

Errors

  • The statement that the final generation of forged Cybertronians was born millions of years ago, before the war, contradicts More than Meets the Eye's assertion that Fortress Maximus was a forged Autobot born during the war. In a Q&A, James Roberts would suggest the existence of random minor hot spots as a reconciliation.[2]
  • The cops who interrogate Bumblebee before Prowl and Orion arrive are drawn as Functionaries, as they appeared in the parallel Functionist Universe. This doesn't feel right; though we know from More than Meets the Eye #37 that Functionaries do exist in the "main" universe, this is not a role they should be performing, as they were merely enforcers of the Functionist Council's policies (which are no longer law by this point in time), rather than armed officers of the law who would be involved in investigating a bombing. These guys should probably be more in the Springarm/Wheelarch mold, a body-type shared by numerous officers in this era.
  • Prowl appears with the present-day Cybertronian body he used in the latter part of Robots in Disguise's first "season".
  • During the battle with the beasts, things go all pear-shaped with the Torchbearers colors. On page 28, panel 1, two Torchbearer-colored characters with designs that don't match any of the present-day team are shown being struck by the beasts, and Pyra's narration states that Fastbreak has fallen, indicating she is supposed to be one of them. However, in the next panel, two more Torchbearer-colored characters are shown moving in at Praesidia's command—one is Skyburst (but with her red chest-greeblie on the wrong side), and the other is a new character. On the next page, this new character is miscolored as Dust Up when she drags Jumpstream out of harm's way, and then on page 31, panel 4, she appears again, back in Torchbearer colors (but this time with a grey mouthplate instead of red, and inverted body and arm colors), her dead body being cradled by Rust Dust. Obviously, then, this character is supposed to be Fastbreak, and the figures on page 28 are miscolored Camien natives; the caption describing Fastbreak's death comes too early in the story.
  • Further to this, there are seven Torchbearer-colored characters on page 31, panel 3, including Pyra; it would appear that, aside from her, these are in fact all supposed to be other non-Torchbearer Camiens.
  • On page 31, Praesidia's speech bubble ("Don't leave me like Antilla...") is coming from Pyra.
  • On page 36, Dust Up and Jumpstream's lines of the poem are switched.
  • During the flashback, Praesidia's colors differ almost every panel. This could be done to stimulate imperfect recall, however.

Other trivia

TransformersAnnual2017-KimberAndStormer.jpg
  • Originally solicited for release in February 2017, this issue arrives a little late, slipping into the first week of March. One of several Hasbro Universe Annuals released in early 2017, it is only labelled a "Transformers" annual, representing the whole brand, rather than any one of the three ongoing Transformers titles. That said, being that it's written by John Barber, stars Optimus Prime and Pyra Magna dealing with their issues from Optimus Prime, directly addresses the plot bubbling under in that series about the return of Onyx Prime, and ends with an advert for the next issue of that series, it's basically the Optimus Prime annual under a less-specific name.
  • This issue is presented with a "mirrored" layout; the first and last page have the same number of panels in the same layout, as do the second and second-to-last, and so on, all the way up until they meet the middle.
  • Backmatter for this issue includes reprints of the profiles for Optimus Prime, Victorion, and Soundwave, previously published in Revolution #5, #3, and #4, respectively.
  • There are some very female-looking Transformers living on Cybertron during a time period there weren't supposed to be any. At the time, this seemed like an error, or simply a side-effect of some of them being Easter-eggs references to Jem and the Holograms (alongside the real-life principle that gender presentation is distinct from gender identity); however in Lost Light #8 Anode revealed that many returning Primal Vanguard expeditions would include a few Cybertronians who, following illuminating encounters with other races, had "reclassified themselves", and who (by implication) would sometimes adapt their appearance to their new identity.

Covers (2)

  • (thumbnail)

    Proof Hasbro regards Bumblebee as God.

  • (thumbnail)

    "Your move, creep!"

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Reprints

References

  1. ↑ "I'm pretty sure it's all @Pr1ps aside from the ones you mention. Looking at the script, I also managed to call him "Optimus Priman" one time and I repeatedly spelled "alligator" wrong, so even more credit to Priscilla for deciphering my script."—John Barber, Twitter, 2018/03/07
  2. ↑ Transcription of 30 November 2018 James Roberts Q&A on Instagram

External links

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