Disclosure

 

Writer: Rob Gerbracht

Publication date: July 31, 2004

 

After the clusterfuck of last issue, Apelinq is starting to doubt Primal Prime's leadership abilities, something I was doing from the beginning. Still, everyone keeps following him as he unveils his latest revelation from the Oracle: that they have to go to some random ice planet. Glyph and CatSCAN announce that they are staying behind to help the Akalouthans. Oh no, my two favorite characters.

On the sixth planet of the Hoth system, the Wreckers encounter a Quintesson named Al-badur, who joins the party after giving an incredibly long-winded and convoluted recap of Cybertronian history and G1 deep lore. The only important part is that the so-called Oracle is confirmed to be a Quintesson shell program designed to block the real Vector Sigma from communicating with the Transformers. The Wreckers realize that the Dinobots and Mutants were sent on suicide missions; their own assignment was legit, though, because the Oracle program broke down over time and Vector Sigma was able to get a few messages through, or something. I don't know. But in another scene Cryotek tells his Quintesson allies that the Oracle is now totally defunct following the complete technorganic reformatting of Cybertron at the end of Beast Machines, so whatever, it doesn't matter anymore.

Some Sharkticons show up, I guess to silence Al-badur? The Wreckers make quick work of them, with Rodimus making a G1 cartoon reference to Arcee. Arcee is bewildered that she wasn't able to foresee any of this; ever since she saved Fractyl, she hasn't received any visions of the future. Oh yeah, I guess that was a thing they mentioned one time. 

 

Primal Prime says that they will take Al-badur away from his frozen exile if he will tell them the origins of the Divine Light that Cyclonus stole. Al-badur explains that the Divine Light is a conduit that grants its holder direct access to the power of Primus, who I think is confirmed here to be the physical planet of Cybertron in this universe. Primus being Cybertron is a thing in multiple continuities, but it's weird for that to be brought into play here when these comics have leaned so hard on G1 cartoon continuity, in which Primus was never even mentioned and Unicron was a science project made by Some Guy.

Elsewhere, Devcon gets wasted and fondles a robot hooker while recruiting T-Wrecks and the other surviving Dinobots to help him punch Cyclonus. What are the Dinobots doing in this seedy bar on the other side of the galaxy? Did they just give up on the whole "saving Cybertron" thing after half of their number got eaten by a sandworm? If so, I can't say I blame them; I'm about ready to give up on this series.

Not as disastrous as Betrayal, but still not any good. I can't believe a con-exclusive comic book tie-in had the gall to come right out and unequivocally retcon the entire plot of Beast Machines. Like get over yourself. I also have no idea what the hell Al-badur was talking about. I must not be a big enough Transformers fan to understand all these deep cuts. ¡Qué lástima!