The Illusion of Control

« The Transformers: Monstrosity #10 »
"The Illusion of Control"
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	July 3, 2013
Story by	Chris Metzen & Flint Dille
Art by	Livio Ramondelli
Letters by	Tom B. Long
Editor	John Barber
Continuity	2005 IDW continuity
Chronology	Early in the war

The Autobots fight Trypticon while Scorponok pays the price for his coup.

Synopsis

Angry with himself for his failure to keep Dai Atlas and Grimlock from leaving, Optimus Prime voices his frustration to Alpha Trion, but the sage's advice is interrupted by reports that Trypticon is rampaging across Cybertron in the direction of Harmonex. After ordering his troops to prepare their biggest guns, Prime goes to ask for help from Metroplex, who recognizes Trypticon as a monster he helped seal away in ancient times. However, he cannot join the fight this time as the energon crisis has robbed him of the energy he needs transform into robot mode. Without the Titan's help, the Autobots devise a plan to use the buildings of Harmonex against Trypticon, though they regret that they will have to ruin the beautiful Singing City in the process. Blurr's harassment team lures Trypticon close to the city's central structure, where Ironhide's heavy weapons units is waiting to blast him with fusion-borers. While the monster is distracted by the barrage, the Aerialbots bombard the building, collapsing it and burying Trypticon in rubble.

Meanwhile, Scorponok is pulled away from reveling in the destruction caused by Trypticon by Starscream, who invites him to Kolkular's main hall where the Decepticons are waiting to honor their "true leader". On entering the hall, however, he finds that Starscream was in fact referring to a returning Megatron, who greets him by crippling him with an energy blast. Scorponok attempts to flee, fight and finally plead for mercy with Megatron, but nothing works—Megatron unceremoniously shoots him in the head and leaves him to be torn to pieces by the Terrorcons, though not before ordering them to keep him alive so that he can continue to feel pain. Having finally taken back his position as Decepticon leader, Megatron gets back to business and demands to know what has happened to his planet in his absence.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• As well as fusion-borers and grav-inhibitors, Prime also requisitions industrial-grade phase-charges from Magnus.
• The heart of Metroplex visited by Optimus Prime is the Matrix shrine previously seen in his Acropolex disguise in issue #5 of Autocracy.
• Metroplex describes Trypticon as a "spawn of Mortilus", a death god introduced in the More than Meets the Eye 2012 annual. It's almost certain that Dille and Metzen—the relationship of whose work on the "-acy" series to the other present-day IDW series could be defined as "distant" at best—did not mean this to be idiomatic, but More than Meets the Eye #28 quietly retconned it into being so, because part of the whole point of Mortilus and the Guiding Hand is that it isn't known if they're even real or not, and for Metroplex to so matter-of-factly state that Mortilus existed would pretty much shatter that.
  • And then Salvation came along and retconned it back in, with Trypticon actively remembering his creation at the hands of Mortilus. Of course, the Guiding Hand turned out to be real, so it checks out.
• Some more The Transformers: The Movie quotes happen when Scorponok reacts to Megatron's return with "Megatron? Is that you?", to which Megatron replies "Here's a hint." and shoots him.

Reprints

Other than collections of the full series.

• N/A