Armageddon Part 2

« Transformers Energon #33 »
"Armageddon Part 2"
Publisher	Dreamwave Productions
Cover date	March 2005
Writer	Simon Furman
Continuity	Dreamwave Armada continuity

Over-Run dies! And other stuff happens.

Synopsis

A flashback shows us Over-Run in his native, alternate dimension, preparing to leave Cybertron in the Null-reality pod with the Mini-Con Matrix. The planet has been almost entirely consumed by Unicron, and Over-Run is reluctant to leave his fellow Mini-Cons to such a fate, but Zapmaster urges him to go, and to give meaning to their sacrifice by taking the Mini-Con Matrix to another Cybertron, in hopes of using it to stop Unicron there.

In the present on this universe's Cybertron, the ghostly Starscream has apparently killed Over-Run and shattered the Mini-Con Matrix. The Omnicons arrive and attack Starscream, but physical force is of no use against the spectral Decepticon, and when the Omnicons try to use their Energon weapons, Starscream merely soaks up their energy. He seals the four Omnicons in Energon spheres, and all around the combatants, Energon ignites into a raging inferno.

Their job done on Nervissa, Unicron's Four Horsemen prepare to return to Unicron in defiance of Alpha Quintesson's orders, since their allegiance is to the chaos-bringer, not the alien. Anticipating this little rebellion, Alpha Quintesson promptly contacts them and gives them their next target: the Autobot/Alterenergy base on Mars. And he could not have picked a better time to stage such an assault, as the Mars base is presently distracted, all its sensors trained on Earth in search of the missing Kicker, following his abduction by Demolishor. Carlos tells Rad as much, but Rad blames himself for Kicker's disappearance and is determined to find him, since Grimlock and Swoop have proved fairly useless. They can at least be sure that Kicker is still on Earth since the shield surrounding the planet inhibits space bridge transport, and Alexis calls in from the United Nations to let them know that a concerted effort is being made by the nations of the world to help locate Kicker.

On the Decepticons' cloaked satellite base, Megatron gives Shockblast the newest target for his assault team to attack: a small Energon processing facility in the Cayman Islands. Shockblast believes that they would be better served attacking a larger key Autobot installation, but Megatron simply dismisses him, prompting Mirage to quietly opine that Megatron is losing his edge. Shockblast rebukes him, but his words do not seem entirely genuine... yet the two Decepticons' are unaware of just how true to the mark their words are, as Megatron silently reflects on his imprisonment, vivisection and rebirth within Unicron's body. It become apparent just how badly shaken the experience has left him.

Back on Cybertron, Skyblast manages to free the Omnicons from Starscream's Energon spheres with his Energon warheads, but the explosions only make the Energon fire worse, and Starscream even stronger. The team flees, and with Starscream in hot pursuit, Strongarm comes up with a new plan on the fly: recalling how the Omnicons' minds merged when they were imprisoned by Snow Cat, he leads the Omnicons in repeating the merge. Then, as Starscream begins to drain their Energon, they mentally fight back, turning it into a psychic tug-o-war. Starscream loses this battle of wills and reverts to both a solid form, and to his old cowardly self. He flees rather than face the Omnicons, but the victory is a pyrrhic one for our four heroes... because Over-Run is no more.

Having been monitoring the Omnicons' and Starscream's battle, High Councillor Avalon reports to Alpha Quintesson that Over-Run has been disposed of. He uses his council access codes to re-route one of Ironhide's seismic-shock warheads to a new location...

And in the Solar System, the Four Horsemen close in on Mars...

Featured characters

Characters are ordered as mentioned in Furman's outline.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• This issue was never released. This article's summary is derived from a series of blog posts made by Simon Furman in late 2010.
• This issue, and the other unreleased issues of Dreamwave's Energon comic, were declared to be "true and accurate" to the Dreamwave Unicron Trilogy universe by a 2015 entry of Ask Vector Prime.

Continuity notes

• Despite this issue never being published, the plot thread of Over-Run's death at the hands of Starscream would later carry over into Fun Publications' 2006 Cybertron comic, Revelations. Here, it was revealed that Over-Run had survived, having downloaded his mind into Cybertron's planetary network before Starscream ended his life.
• The Decepticons' satellite base debuted in "Perspective", the Energon story in the 20th Anniversary Transformers Summer Special. That story promoted itself as taking place outside of the current continuity of the Energon comic; evidently, it took place a little bit further into the future than the comics were set at the time of its publication, and the satellite was established at some point during the six month intermezzo that followed "Multiplicity".
• The Omnicons merged their consciousnesses in issue #25.
• Ironhide's seismic-shock warheads previously appeared in issue #24.

Covers (1)

• Starscream vs the Omnicons; art by Alex Milne, Elaine To and Jong-Im Lee.

External links

• Part 1 of Simon Furman's "Armageddon Part 2" outline
• Part 2 of Simon Furman's "Armageddon Part 2" outline