Finale (OMAM)

Wreckers, Pretenders, and humans battle Thunder Mayhem for the fate of Earth.

Synopsis

As Ramjet heals himself from Toxitron's touch, Megatron takes the opportunity to engage him. Megatron notes that Ramjet, too, is a Decepticon, but not one of his; he fights only to kill and destroy. Realizing that Ramjet was the one who sent the signal to the Mayhem Attack Squad, Megatron vows to stop Ramjet, and orders his partner, the diminutive Decepticon Spacewarp, to transform to gun mode and link to a black hole. But Ramjet is unimpressed by Megatron, having faced numerous incarnations of before, and unleashes his power against the former Decepticon leader. The Wreckers turn their attention away from the fight, as they head off to face their target: Thunder Mayhem. The massive combiner holds onto Optimus Prime, hoping to break him once more by forcing Prime to watch as he destroys the city, but Prime is freed when the Wreckers combine into an unstoppable force of their own: Wreckage! Thunder Mayhem is shocked, as Wreckage's semi-incoherently rants, claiming that he is the universe's retribution against Mayhem. However, Mayhem quickly regains his composure, and the two combiners engage each other.

Meanwhile, on the streets, Elizabeth has called G.B. Blackrock; Blackrock tries to persuade her from "revealing herself," worried about what will happen to her after the fight is over. Elizabeth, however, refuses to listen, knowing if that she doesn't get involved, there won't be a world to return to after the fight is done. A shocked Spike Witwicky watches as Elizabeth reveals that she is a superhuman, a "living battery" with the ability to absorb energy. The wounded Crossblades, knowing there's nothing else he can do, offers his energon to her. As Thunder Mayhem gains the advantage and wounds Wreckage, he is distracted when Elizabeth unleashes her abilities on him, with the R.A.A.T.s arriving soon after to unleash their payload on the Decepticon. Wreckage takes the chance to stab Thunder Mayhem in the chest, finally wounding the combiner, revealing the true source of his power to a shocked Optimus Prime: a sixth, green spark, hidden inside a Matrix! Elizabeth realizes that Crossblades power won't be enough to stop him, and turns to Wreckage. The Wrecker combiner refuses to share his power, but Elizabeth forces it from him, unwilling to let his selfishness stop her. Metalhawk, Prime, Elizabeth, R.A.A.T., and everyone else aim at the monster's spark, and together, both humans and Autobots do the one thing that the Cybertronians alone could not: destroy Thunder Mayhem once and for all. The destruction of his ally causes Ramjet's resolve to shatter, and he flees, calling out for his master. Megatron, meanwhile, reverts to his human disguise; for the first time in a long time, Megatron is truly free.

A few weeks later, things have appeared to return to normal. The Wreckers have taken the weakened Mayhem Attack Squad on their ship, leaving Earth. Prime has joined Skyhammer in hunting down Ramjet, to prevent him from sowing any more darkness. At Buster Witwicky's home, his family is joined by Spike and his friends, watching the news reports on the events of the past few weeks. Elizabeth explains to Spike that Blackrock was able to keep her and the Pretenders' true nature concealed from the public, knowing their importance to Earth's defense; Spike, somewhat angry at her deception, tries to get her to talk about Blackrock's other team, but Elizabeth plays dumb. Vroom wonders if whatever had transported them had planned for them to help defeat Thunder Mayhem, but Jesse and Buster, having had enough of "reality" for one day, turns to something fictional: wrestling. However, all of them are in for a shock when they see one more straggler from their old universe: Decepticon Pretender Stranglehold!

Truly, it never ends...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Wreckage: "You. The ultimate weapon. The perfect machine of death whose shadow overcasts monsters... But monsters prefer the shadows. Crave them. Use them to hide their monstrosity... Until that time when they are ready for all to see... See that the true beauty lies in the beast."
Thunder Mayhem: "What...are you?"
Wreckage: "What am I? I am what you've made of this entire universe...Wreckage."
Thunder Mayhem: "Then you're just one more piece of worthless scrap like everything else."

"If we're going to get past it, I'm going to need to take more than Crossblades has. I'm going to need some of your energy, big guy."
"WHAT? No! I don't share power with any —"
"Did I sound like I was asking?"

—Elizabeth and Wreckage

Notes

• Characters mentioned include: Ramjet's master, Skyhammer, and Blackrock's team.

Continuity notes

• Though referred to as R.A.A.T.s consistently, the mechs used by the team are those of their successors, the R.U.N.T.s, who previously appeared in the "Crossing Over" storyline and "Invasion Prologue".
• Spike refers to Blackrock's "other team," obviously in reference to the Neo-Knights seen in the latter half of the Marvel The Transformers comics. Crossblades even refers to Elizabeth's powers as "neo."
• The true source of Thunder Mayhem's power, the altered green spark of Thunderwing within the Matrix of Malice, was revealed in the Of Masters and Mayhem prose story, "Foundation and Wreckage Part 1: Deadly Aim", discovered in files recovered by Fractyl.
• Vroom's musings are true, as revealed by Gaea herself in "Divination".
• Stranglehold appears to have been accidentally transported alongside the Autobot Pretenders; he was last seen as one of Gigatron's Decepticons in "Invasion".

Transformers references

• Megatron's ability, through Spacewarp, to link to a black hole, hearkens back to the original toy's tech specs, which stated he could use a link to a black hole to power himself with antimatter. Spacewarp snarkily wonders why Megatron couldn't be the one with a space bridge in their chest; the 2005 IDW Publishing comic continuity version of Megatron was rebuilt to have a space bridge in his chest in the 2009-2011 ongoing The Transformers comic.
• Spacebridge links to Gravastar 1179, and according to Jesse Wittenrich, this was a bit of a random reference. The Transformers: Prime episode "Metal Attraction", which featured a weapon that could attract transformers (albeit through magnetics rather than gravity), aired on July 9 of 2011: hence, 11/7/9.
• Ramjet claims that he's wielded the powers of "Dead Universes"; the Dead Universe was an unliving alternate reality seen in the 2005 IDW comic continuity.
• Impactor doesn't care whether Megatron can defeat Ramjet or not; the two were depicted as former friends before the war in the 2005 IDW comics continuity.
• Thunder Mayhem's green spark marks him as a Point One Percenter, powerful Cybertronians with special green sparks, introduced in IDW Publishing's 2005 comics continuity.
• Galen is playing with a toy of Powermaster Optimus Prime in the final scene.
• Stranglehold is stated to have come from Slaughter City, an area of Cybertron which the Mayhem Attack Squad used a simulation of for training in issue #229 of the Marvel UK The Transformers. His titles are "the Monarch of Mayhem" (he was a member of the Mayhem Attack Squad in both the Marvel UK and US comics) and "the Rampaging Rhino" (his alternate mode is a rhino).
• A sign in Spanish reads "todos...como uno!", which is a fairly rough way of translating the phrase "all..are one!", in reference to the phrase "'Til all are one", first used in The Transformers: The Movie.

Marvel Comics references

• It's not explicitly stated to avoid any rights issues, but Elizabeth is clearly intended to be a mutant, of Marvel Comics fame—Blackrock doesn't want her to reveal herself for fear of prejudice, which mutants consistently find themselves faced with, and Metalhawk refers to "a few—very few—with other powers," obviously referring to both the X-Men and the aforementioned Neo-Knights. The Neo-Knights themselves were never explicitly referred to as mutants in the comic itself, but they were referred to as such in a few editorial pieces published in various issues, and they're mentioned several times to have been born with "genetic quirks". The connection stems from the fact that, in the early issues of the Marvel The Transformers comic (which the "Classicsverse" stories splinter off of), it was depicted as being in-continuity with the main Marvel comic continuity along the lines of ROM and The Micronauts, most prominently with the appearance of Spider-Man in issue #3.

Real-world references

• Wreckage's rant, as quoted above, references the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.
• Stranglehold weighs 229 pounds, the weight of retired professional wrestler Bob Boyer, most notable for being crushed by André the Giant in 1984.
• The female wrestlers accompanying Stranglehold are colored based on one of the uniforms of retired WWE wreslters, Nikki and Brie Bella.

Other trivia

• When Ramjet talks about being able to "extinguish [Megatron's] spark with the flick of a finger", the L and the I run together, resulting in a... rather unfortunate-looking text bubble.
• Spacewarp makes her sole appearance in the storyline this chapter, having apparently resided in Megatron's Pretender shell for the rest of the chapters.
• Before the final figure of the Figure Subscription Service was decided as Shattered Glass Starscream, Sunstorm was considered to appear in this story as a deus ex machina to help in the fight against Thunder Mayhem.^[1]

Errors

• In the exchange between Thunder Mayhem and Wreckage (see "quotes" above), the ellipses that should be in Thunder Mayhem's line, "What...are you?", have accidentally be substituted with only one period.

References