Finale

 

Writers: Rob Gerbrecht (Part 1) and Greg Sepelak & Trent Troop (Part II)

Publication date: November 30, 2007

 

This final chapter of The Wreckers is also the best chapter of The Wreckers. Is it good in and of itself? No, but how could it be with that clusterfuck of a lead-up? The fact that it exists at all is a minor miracle, as Fun Publications was under no obligation to clean up the mess of Transformers convention canon that 3H left behind when they went bankrupt. The Wreckers: Finale even puts in the effort to right some of the wrongs committed in earlier chapters. It also adds its own peccadilloes to the pile, leaves behind multiple dangling plot threads, and just isn’t particularly well written. But it does give the impression that there was some effort being made and someone put some degree of care into what they were writing, so despite my ultimate indifference to the story it was telling, I didn’t completely hate it.

 

Finale is basically a 35-page-long fight scene: Sentinel Maximus fighting Cryotek, the Wreckers fighting Cyclonus, all of Cybertron fighting the Quintesson invasion. That's okay, but unfortunately most of it isn't very exciting. There are about half a dozen scene transitions marked by an interlude wherein we're introduced to a new Quintesson character who is commanding a group of Sharkticons and encounters a new Transformer or group of Transformers and is killed by them. One such Quintesson is In-Saba Nur, incongruously named after En Sabah Nur (aka Apocalypse, as in Age of) from X-Men. We follow him for about half a page and then he dies. 

 

Galvatron from Beast Wars II briefly shows up here as well, although it's clearly not the same Galvatron from Beast Wars II because he isn't dead. Like Magmatron, they just lifted this character with a very specific backstory and dropped him into a different continuity where that backstory doesn't apply. What's even the point? 

 

There's also a scene where some Quintessons are attacked by a group of un-reformatted Decepticons, all of whom believe themselves to be G1 Thundercracker. Is this supposed to be a reference to something? What's happening?

The Thundercrackers explain that when all the sparks Megatron had stolen were released at the end of Beast Machines, they were immediately drawn to the nearest available Transformer body. This does nothing to explain why their bodies weren't reformatted during the Great Transformation, or why there were random Decepticon bodies lying around in the first place. This particular vignette takes place in an area where "the planet's reformatting does not seem to be complete. This city is wholly technological, but this should not be possible." But they never explain why the city wasn't reformatted. Why even introduce this idea?

Arcee's ability to foresee the deaths of anyone she interacts with, the thing that made her go into seclusion for hundreds of years, is never explained, nor is her sudden loss of that ability. In fact it's never mentioned at all. It's like the writers who took over The Wreckers for the final chapter had no idea where the previous writer was going with that and wisely decided to ditch it.

What does get mentioned is Airazor, but it's completely pointless because even though they go the trouble of bringing her up, they still don't explain what happened to her after Primeval Dawn. When the Beast Machines cast is reunited with Tigatron, Rattrap asks him, "An' hey, speakin' of the dames, if you're here, where's th' bird lady? I even miss the way she'd tell me ta shut up!" And Tigatron just doesn't answer or react at all and the scene just moves on like nothing happened. What the fuck?

 

There's also a scene where Tigatron brings Fractyl out of his coma by striking a deal with the Vok living inside him, that he will set them free in exchange for them using their power to save Fractyl's life. Why are there Vok living inside him? Was this ever established anywhere? The Vok were in Tarantulas. Oh hey whatever happened to Tarantulas anyway? Did they ever get the Matrix back from him? 

Anyway, Tigatron frees the Vok that he was apparently imprisoning, but it has no effect on anything and doesn't matter at all. Al-badur's dark prophecy of Tigatron discovering the true nature of the Vok never comes to pass. The Vok have no impact on anything that happens in the story.

But it's not all bad. Cheetor is fairly well written in this chapter, with his character arc and role as Optimus Primal's successor actually respected in the text. He helps Rodimus drain the power of the Divine Light from Cryotek, something they're able to do because they're both "Matrix Templars," although what that means is never explained.

I liked that the Beast Wars/Beast Machines characters had a presence and role in the story besides just being cameos or getting clowned on to show how cool a new character is. I liked when Rodimus was going to sacrifice himself to land their ship and Skywarp decked him and took his place, like he was being all noble so everyone else could escape, and then he just teleported out of the ship before it crashed and completely deflated his own heroism. I guess I mostly just liked when established characters were written true to character and weren't forced to eat shit.

So Al-badur, the Quintesson member of the Wreckers, betrays the rest of the team by tricking them all into fighting Cryotek on top of a portal he's going to open into "the formless void." Unfortunately the only ones who fall for it are Sentinel Maximus and Cryotek, both of whom are trapped inside of an impregnable force field around the portal. Since they both can fly, they spend an anticlimactically long time just hovering above the open portal, waiting for something to happen.

Meanwhile, Rodimus has his final confrontation with Cyclonus, the epic fight that people have been waiting decades for, apparently. They mortally wound each other and Cyclonus is about to finish him off when Rotorbolt (who did not die!) comes in and shoots Cyclonus in the face.

Rodimus seems like he's done for but he's borne aloft by Botanica's vines into the chamber where everyone else is. He does the thing with Cheetor where they drain the Divine Light, causing Cryotek to shatter it so he's able to hold on to some fraction of its power. Ramulus headbutts Al-badur and he falls through the force field and is drawn into the void, where he disintegrates. Before Ramulus can deactivate the portal, however, Sentinel Maximus and Cryotek pull each other into it and disappear. 

 

Also it's revealed that Icebird and Poison Bite, two of the Mutants who were eaten alive by Sharkticons, survived being eaten alive by Sharkticons. As they revenge themselves on the Quintessons, Icebird's eyes start glowing white and he apparently becomes an avatar of Primus himself for some reason. I Can Always Count On Your Interference To Drive My Children Forward, he tells the Quintessons. And On Your Inability To Learn From Your Mistakes. ... I Will Call Your People To Me Again The Next Time I Have Need Of An Evolutionary Crisis.  

 

What.

Then I guess Icebird and Poison Bite stay on New Quintessa and bring freedom and enlightenment to the Sharkticons or something.

 

While that’s going on, Rodimus dies off-screen when no one's looking. Rattrap just glances over and notices that he passed away at some point between scenes. "It's alright [sic]," Arcee eulogizes him. "He's with Optimus now… with friends who love him and missed him while they were gone. Death… isn't an ending. It's just another change… Change is what we do. And knowing Rodimus… he wouldn't want us to give up hope just because he's no longer with us. I know we'll see him again someday…when all are one."

In the void, Cryotek is floating around in featureless nothingness when Sentinel Maximus floats into view. Cryotek moves to kill him so he can use his energy to escape, but Primus says Sentinel Maximus. You Are Needed, and teleports him away. Cryotek resolves to somehow cause the fragment of the Divine Light left within him to increase in power until he can use it to escape. Good luck, asshole.

Sentinel Maximus finds himself in a semiconscious state where he is visited by the specter of everyone's favorite Silverbolt repaint, Windrazor, who appeared to critical acclaim in Reaching the Omega Point. Windrazor explains that although the future he came from was prevented from ever coming to be, he was saved by author fiat I mean the will of Primus and pulled from the timeline to become a spirit guide in the Allspark. He's on a mission to assist other Matrix Templars (still no explanation of what that is?), but he just wanted to stop by and say hi.

Sentinel Maximus wakes up in Vector Sigma on an alternate version of Cybertron, standing beside Vector Prime and an alternate version of Alpha Trion. "I feel... strange," he says. Me too, buddy. Me too.