Renewal

Writer: Rob Gerbracht

Publication date: September 7, 2007 (unofficial release)

 

The fourth issue of a planned five-issue story arc, Renewal was never published due to 3H Productions losing the Transformers license and going bankrupt, with art for only the first four pages being completed before the issue was canceled. That art was eventually incorporated into The Wreckers: Finale, a prose story by Fun Publications that wrapped up the storyline. The entirety of The Wreckers #4 was never completed or officially published, but the script was made available online and can be assumed to be mostly canonical to the subsequent events of the finale.

If you're forcing yourself to read through this series, though, I'd suggest just skipping it, as the finale includes an abbreviated version of it. But since it exists, let's discuss it.

The issue opens three deca-cycles (usually this would mean three months, but it's established in Finale to be only a week) after the series finale of Beast Machines. Optimus Primal and Megatron are dead, Cybertron has been reborn as a technorganic or techno-organic paradise (whatever that means), and every Transformer on the planet has been reformatted à la the Synthesis ending of Mass Effect 3. 

So it's immediately weird that the first character we're introduced to is an "Autobot journalist" named Rook. Why is there an Autobot anything on contemporary Cybertron? It was always confusing when the Beast Wars prequels we read featured Autobots and Decepticons coexisting with Maximals and Predacons, but that was at least somewhat understandable as a transitional era. But why would there still be active Autobots and Decepticons hundreds of years after the Great Upgrade, when Transformers became physically smaller and more energy-efficient (Megatron II derisively called the G1-era Transformers "archaic Energon guzzlers") and the infrastructure and technology of their entire civilization adapted with them? How would a post-Beast Machines Transformer even be able to be an Autobot in any meaningful sense when everyone on Cybertron was reformatted into technorganic bodies? Shouldn't all Transformers factions be a thing of the past at this point?

I can understand the established Wreckers characters who weren't physically on Cybertron at the time of the "Great Transformation" being excepted, but who the hell is Rook? You get the impression that this is some kind of G1 fanboyism being willfully ignorant of well-established Beast Wars lore. The Maximals and Predacons are explicitly the descendants of the Autobots and Decepticons. Do you know what "descendant" means?

Anyway, the era of peace won by Optimus Primal's sacrifice comes to an abrupt end when the Quintessons attack Cybertron, disgorging a rabid army of Sharkticons on the planet's surface. More new characters we don't care about organize a defense, namely Longhorn and Snarl. Cheetor is also there but he's treated like some lowly rank-and-file infantryman who just barks "yes, sir!" at these way more important characters you've never heard of. I thought the whole point of his character arc in Beast Machines was him maturing from the cocksure greenhorn he was in Beast Wars to a capable leader who could take Optimus Primal's place. But who wants to see that?

Meanwhile, we jump back and forth between our two groups of surviving Wreckers characters, the Dinobots (featuring Devcon) and Primal Prime's gang of asshole losers. They're both on their way back to Cybertron, and it takes them the whole issue to get there.

By studying the weaponry of the Sharkticons they defeated on Hoth, Apelinq has deduced that the Quintessons are in league with Cryotek, the coolest and smartest and most badass and most famousest bad guy ever. "Of course!" ejaculates Primal Prime. "Can't any of you see the danger here?  It all finally makes sense.  This Cryotek doesn't simply want control of Cybertron.  He wants control of Primus!"

Also there's another new character introduced called Reptron, who is compared to Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Please, let it end.

On Cybertron, Cryotek, Cyclonus, and their Quintesson entourage are doing something when they're confronted by Ramulus, Primal Prime, Apelinq, Al-badur, maybe some other people, I don't know. Cryotek channels the power of Primus and blasts both Primal Prime and Apelinq at once, fusing them together into a melted mass. Al-badur says that this was a big mistake because using the power of Primus thus will act like a beacon to Unicron. Is he going to return yet again?

Cryotek mutates into a giant monster Cryotek for some reason. "Do any of you still have the power to oppose your creator's hand, as it has become fashioned into my fist!?" he asks, which is... almost a cool line.

But Primal Prime and Apelinq yet live, only they have been combined into a new character: the mighty Sentinel Maximus!

HOO HAH!

 

hurray, it's overae