Homecoming

 

Writer: Simon Furman

Publication date: August 6, 2004

Well, all good things must come to an end. I don't mean the Universe comic, or the 3H timeline, or even post-Beast Machines fiction in general. No, Transformers: Universe #3: Homecoming marks the end of our recent run of not completely terrible Beast Wars tie-ins. Because this issue is a big ol' belly flop. Let's get through it as quickly as possible.

 

Optimus Primal bursts into the Maximal High Council chambers on Cybertron. In attendance is Magnaboss in his combined form, as well as some other guys. "The Dark God has returned!" Optimus bellows, then recaps the story so far, how Unicron has been pulling Transformers from throughout space, time, and realities and corrupting them to his side, while Optimus Primal was resurrected by Primus himself to stop him. 

Seems like business as usual for this universe, really, but Magnaboss is like "nah." Optimus is like "what?" Magnaboss is like "nah, fam, I don't believe you." Optimus is like "huh." Magnaboss is like "I see God as more of a metaphor, man. Also you're under arrest." Guards drag Optimus Primal away while the High Council votes on forming a committee to delegate a task force to investigate the possible existence of God and whether or not Primal's resurrection constitutes a violation of the separation of church and state.

 

While Optimus is under house arrest, his longtime friends discuss how he's crazy and untrustworthy. "All I'm saying, Rattrap, is being dead may have changed him... that's all," argues Cheetor intelligently. "I know as well as you how much we owe Optimus—now and then."

"I too have misgivings, Cheetor," agrees Silverbolt, who Optimus Primal just saved from Unicron in the previous issue. "Even if this really is the Optimus Primal whom we once fought alongside... can we really trust him? The rescue, the breakout, it could all be an elaborate ploy to make us take him into our confidence."

 

Only Rattrap (because Nightscream and Botanica are completely absent from this story because [reasons], remember) takes Optimus's side, but he can't do that without mentioning how unusual that fact is because Optimus usually sucks. "Ya know me, I was never a Big-Bot booster, but this time... I'm with him to the bitter end!"

 

Remember that Optimus Primal gave his life to save Cybertron and the entirety of the Transformers race, then he somehow came back from the dead and immediately risked his life to save a bunch of people who were supernaturally abducted in front of thousands of witnesses. But I'm sure he's just making it up.

 

This is all so absurd and contrived it's not even annoying. It's too ridiculous to take seriously as something that's actually happening in a story; your brain just rejects its narrative reality.

Primus and Alpha Trion dispatch Snarl, who has been a somewhat prominent secondary character ever since the canceled fourth issue of The Wreckers even though I'm still not sure who he is or why he's important, to spring Optimus, but after he bursts into the room to free him, Primus just opens a portal that leads Optimus directly to where Alpha Trion is hanging out with Primus's disembodied head. So really sending Snarl did nothing at all.

Alpha Trion babbles on about how they're going to create an "underground railroad," which he describes as "a special unit designed to infiltrate and gather intelligence firsthand." Um, that's not what an underground railroad is...

They're also building a cloaked orbital platform to guard the planet. Alpha Trion says that its construction is already underway, but has hit "practical and logistical snags." Who is building this thing, exactly? Alpha Trion, and now apparently Snarl, are the only people we ever see working for Primus; the Maximal council seems to not even believe that he exists. Is it just Alpha Trion floating around up in space with a hammer, and the "logistical snag" is that he ran out of nails?

In any event, these two projects are proving too tough for Alpha Trion and Literally God to manage, so they've brought in Optimus Primal. Not to actually work on either of these tasks, however, but to make the executive decision on who else they should get to do it. These guys are useless! If I lived in a universe where God and His Chosen Prophet were demonstrably real yet this inept, I'd become an atheist too.

Optimus Primal asks if he's allowed to pick people who are dead. Alpha Trion says yes but it takes a lot of "resources" to bring people back to life so it would be better if he picked one of the thousands of Transformers characters who are alive in this or some other universe. Optimus Primal ignores this and tells him to resurrect Rhinox and Depth Charge, who in the entire multiverse are clearly the people best suited to building a space station and running the CIA.

Remember that Megatron obliterated Rhinox's spark in "Singularity Ablyss," but Primus is all-powerful so he can retcon that. Depth Charge gets a red redeco design, but Rhinox comes back to life in the same body he had all throughout Beast Wars. He had a Transmetal toy they could have used, but for some reason he's never allowed to get an updated form, even in this crappy tie-in comic. 

Rhinox is glad for the chance to redeem himself for the evil he did as Megatron's brainwashed Vehicon general Tankor, but Depth Charge is pissed. "My life was a relentless, numbing succession of battles and vendettas, each one another livid, raw scar on my immortal spark. I became something, someone I no longer recognized... or liked. I pursued my ultimate nemesis to the far reaches of space and time, and finally—finally—it all ended. I was at peace. Until you pulled me out... pulled me back in."

Earlier in the issue, when Optimus was addressing the Maximal council, he said, "As Unicron has gathered his raw materials—plucked from myriad realities and timelines—so I was called forth from glorious oblivion." I know that this is just a stupid crappy promotional tie-in comic that no one read but I find it genuinely disturbing how multiple characters talk about how much preferable death is to having to do things. I get enough of that attitude from my own brain, I don't need to read it in a Transformers comic.

 

Meanwhile, Tarantulas sends Blackarachnia and a group of Piranacons to infiltrate Cybertron and assassinate Alpha Trion, thereby cutting off Primus from the Transformers. Isn't that like trying to stop Zordon from communicating with the Power Rangers by killing Alpha 5? Primus is a head in a tube, what does he need Alpha Trion for?

Rattrap has gone to blow off steam by shooting at the scenery. He's in beast mode for some reason and looks suitably comical firing his gun with little rat fingers. By cosmic coincidence (or maybe it's the will of the Force), he just so happens to run into Blackarachnia, and she zaps him with her electro-web. She's about to finish him off when the coincidence multiplies and Depth Charge also happens to stumble across this scene at this exact moment, having walked out on Optimus and Primus in irritation at being given a second chance at life.

"Though I abhor the use of violence—" he says to Blackarachnia, "—neither can I sanction brutal execution. If you cannot be at peace, you do not belong here. Please... just go!" Yeah that really sounds just like him.

"Raw Energon! Right through your twisted spark! Take it! Take it straight to the Pit, you sickening piece of slag!" #picturesyoucanhear

 

Simon Furman has his talents, but character voice is not one of them. Almost every character he writes sounds like the same character. And that character is Simon Furman.

 

Depth Charge punches Blackarachnia in the face, because he hates all violence except for coldcocking women. "You!" Rattrap ejaculates. "But— Man, it's gettin' so even being dead's just a slight inconvenience." If you lampshade your own bad writing, is it still bad? (Yes.)

Rattrap tells Depth Charge he has to stop Blackarachnia's evil plan. Depth Charge is like "I don't wanna." Then Rattrap passes out so Depth Charge has to go stop Blackarachnia's evil plan. He swims into the Sea of Rust, where he encounters her army of Piranacons. Meanwhile, Alpha Trion opens another portal and brings forth Omega Prime from the 2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon. Oh that's the end.

TO BE CONTINUED... except not.