Escalation # 6
Written by Simon Furman
Penciled by EJ Su
Colors by Zac Atkinson

Summary:

In the Russian breakaway state of Brasnya, the situation has gone from bad to worse for the Autobots.  Megatron stands over a defeated Optimus Prime, announcing his triumph to Prime‘s nearby remaining troops.  Jazz, Wheeljack, and Hardhead can scarcely believe their optics, but Prime is indeed off-line.  Hardhead wastes no time in transforming to tank mode and attacking Megatron, but the Decepticon leader takes a dead-on cannon shot from the Autobot without injury.  Wheeljack and Jazz begin to unload their weapons into Megatron, but can’t seem to phase him.  Some distance away, Prowl and Hot Rod listen to the battle over a comm. line and realize that the others have no chance against the Ore-13-empowered Megatron.  Hot Rod wants to go and help, but Prowl tells him instead to take the Koska facsimile now in their possession and get out of the area via orbital jump.  Hot Rod protests, but Prowl insists that they need to at least complete the mission or the struggle will have been in vain.  Hot Rod is more than reluctant, but Prowl transforms to vehicle mode and orders him to leave.  Before Hot Rod can protest anymore, Prowl takes off towards the battlefield, praying that Optimus Prime isn’t dead.  Unbeknownst to Prowl or anyone, Optimus Prime’s consciousness at that moment resides in a limbo-like dimension as it had begun downloading to his trailer command deck upon his defeat by Megatron.  He’s never tried something like this, but the dire circumstances forced his hand.  As his consciousness aimlessly drifts, Prime becomes aware that he is not alone in this space of nothingness.  A mysterious entity of some sorts resides in this dimension, it’s “eyes” seemingly observing everything in the known universe.  Prime instinctively knows this to be true, and a primal fear grips him as the mysterious being becomes aware of his presence.  Although he can’t explain it, some dark corner of Optimus Prime’s consciousness recognizes this entity.  Meanwhile in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Ratchet and Ironhide enact a rescue mission to retrieve Verity and Jimmy from the secret underground installation under Custom Wheels.  Above ground, Ratchet locates exactly where the humans are under him, and begins cutting a hole down through the ground to get to them.  Underground in the installation, Ironhide’s holo-avatar waits with the kids’ unconscious bodies as he urges Ratchet to hurry.  The place is rigged to explode in barely a minute, plus Ratchet adds the local police are on their way.  Ratchet tells Ironhide to pull his vehicle mode out of the store, but Ironhide refuses- his holomatter projector doesn’t have the range to continue producing an avatar from farther away.  Back in Brasnya, Prowl arrives to help the others take on Megatron.  He orders them to pull back as Megatron has no real long-range weapons left after his fight with Prime.  The Autobots begin to retreat in vehicle mode as Prowl receives a radio transmission from Optimus.  The Autobot leader tells Prowl that downloading his higher functions into his trailer’s command deck allowed him to make Megatron believe he’d died.  Optimus informs Prowl that they need to continue engaging Megatron; if the Ore-13 is similar to the Ultra-Energon that resurrected Thunderwing, it has a weakness that Megatron is apparently unaware of.  Prowl hopes that it’ll be enough as the Decepticon leader marches towards them.  High up in Earth orbit on the Ark-32, Nightbeat receives a radio transmission from Hot Rod; he’s got the Koska facsimile and needs an orbital jump back to the ship.  Then, after dropping the facsimile off, Hot Rod wants Nightbeat to send him right back down to the planet so he can help fight Megatron.  Nightbeat is unsure of doing a double orbital bounce, but Hot Rod insists on it.  However, before Nightbeat can initiate it, a portal opens in the sky above Hot Rod and Skywarp and Thundercracker fly out in jet mode, intent on terminating the Koska facsimile and the Autobot holding him.  Meanwhile back in Fort Wayne at Custom Wheels, Ratchet finally cuts down to the room where Ironhide’s holo-avatar is waiting.  Ironhide has his avatar grow in size so he can reach the ceiling, then hands the unconscious Jimmy and Verity over to Ratchet’s holo-avatar.  As soon as Ratchet has the humans safely within his vehicle mode, he drives off and Ironhide begins pulling his own vehicle mode out of the store as fast as he can.  The local police arrive just as Ironhide’s van mode peels out of the storefront in reverse, and time runs out.  Ironhide and two police cars are engulfed in flame as the entire building explodes.  Back in Brasnya, Prowl and the other pepper the advancing Megatron with firepower, but it’s having no clear effect.  Optimus radios Prowl to let him know that he’s back online again, and the Autobot leader shows up behind Megatron.  The Decepticon leader has no time to react as Prime blasts him point-blank with a rifle blast.  Nearby, Thundercracker and Skywarp mercilessly blast Hot Rod as the Autobot desperately tries to shield the Koska facsimile from harm with his own body.  Nightbeat initiates the orbital jump and Hot Rod and the facsimile are spirited away at last.  Thundercracker and Skywarp turn their attention to Megatron, as the Decepticon leader painfully stands up after being blasted by Prime.  Suddenly, Megatron doubles over and weakly falls to his knees, wondering what is happening to his body.  Still weak from his own thrashing at Megatron’s hands and barely standing himself, Prime explains that the power of Ore-13 comes at a price.  Seeing that’s he’s surrounded by Autobots, Megatron calls for Skywarp to pick him up.  Skywarp swoops in to retrieve as Megatron transforms and shrinks to gun mode, landing in the Seeker‘s cockpit.  The Autobots send a few parting shots as Skywarp opens another portal and he and Thundercracker leave Brasnya.  With the threat over, Optimus nearly falls over, only to be caught by Prowl.  The Autobot commander admits that he very nearly was killed and will need some time in a CR chamber.  Prowl radios Hot Rod for the status of the facsimile, but Nightbeat answers the call.  Nightbeat informs Prowl that Hot Rod is in a CR chamber himself now after being damaged by Skywarp and Thundercracker, and the Koska facsimile was unfortunately killed in the same attack.  Meanwhile in Fort Wayne, Ratchet observes the aftermath of the explosion of the Custom Wheels building.  Ironhide’s wrecked form lies overturned atop the police cars that had arrived just before the detonation.  Ratchet tries to radio him, but gets no response.  Frustrated at this turn of events, Ratchet laments that they didn’t even find out who was behind it all.  In Ratchet’s rear section, we see Jimmy and Verity lying unconscious and a business card with a mysterious “M” on it still clutched in Verity’s hand.  Meanwhile in Tampa, Florida at the Machination’s main installation, Hunter is brought before Dante and his mysterious mechanoid benefactor.  Dante presents Hunter to this unknown Transformer as a subject who has “successfully assimilated the upgrade”.  The Transformer orders mass-production of the process to begin.  Hunter demands to know what has been done to him and what they want with him.  Dante tells Hunter that they don’t really need him anymore, but with proper conditioning he could still be of use to the Machination.  As he says this, Hunter sees a row of identical headless Transformer bodies that all resemble Sunstreaker in the room.  In Washington D.C., the Skywatch organization receives word of the Brasnya conflict and the appearance of more Transformers.  Agent Joshua Red asks of another Skywatch employee for a status report.  The employee mentions the Eureka excavation is on schedule and notes that their two other subjects are ready to go.  The two humans look down a deep, dark pit in the room, where we see Laserbeak and Ravage chained-up and looking restless.  In the Decepticon command bunker in Oregon, Megatron emerges from a CR chamber, being none too pleased with how events have transpired.  He orders Astrotrain to send for Sixshot, to which the Triple-Changer responds with much shock; they’ve never called Sixshot in at this stage in the operation.  Megatron is adamant, however, intoning that there will be only devastation now.  Somewhere deep in space, Sixshot departs from a Decepticon orbital command platform, headed for Earth.  And on the planet Mumu-Obscura, the collection of aliens known as the Reapers decide to follow Sixshot to harvest what is left of Earth after the Decepticon super-weapon ravages it!  TO BE CONTINUED! 


Slagged!:

-Seems Megatron really brought Prime to a hairsbreadth from death, but Optimus manages to fake his demise by downloading his consciousness to his command deck.

-The Autobots try their darndest to damage Megatron, but he suffers little noticeable effect.  It does end up having the effect of burning his Ore-13 energy source off more, which eventually spells Megatron’s defeat.

-Ironhide is shredded pretty good by the explosion of Custom Wheels.  It’s unknown just how severe the damage is, but Ratchet gets no response when he tries to radio Ironhide.

-Optimus comes up from behind Megatron and blasts him dead-on with his rifle, telling him to “burn”.  Harsh, man.

-Hot Rod gets pretty cut up by Thundercracker and Skywarp’s firepower, and the Koska facsimile expires as well thanks to the Seekers’ attack apparently.  “Apparently” being the key word here.


Sightings:

-The “entity” that Optimus encounters in limbo is a mystery.  He sees a ghostly outline of its head, which looks quite similar to Prime himself.  It kind of resembles Beast Wars Neo Big Convoy’s head, but not exactly.  A dark, “Nemesis Prime”-like fragment of his subconscious perhaps?  Or something else entirely is more likely.

-Megatron does his “energy belch” move again, last seen in last issue‘s battle with Prime.  Bet he’s pretty sorry at the end of the issue that he wasted his power on stuff like that.

-Interesting that Hot Rod appears to successfully keep the facsimile from being harmed with his own body, but later Nightbeat reports that the facsimile was hit and expired.  We see that the facsimile had melted into a pile of clothes and green goo after dying.  Could it be that there’s something Nightbeat is not telling us here?  Remember; he’s a sleeper agent for an as-of-yet unseen threat, as seen in his Spotlight issue.  A threat that might want the fighting to continue escalating on Earth and thus ordered Nightbeat to dispose of the facsimile.  Or maybe I’m just being paranoid.

-The Machination apparently are creating mass-produced drones based on Sunstreaker’s body design, that also lack heads.  More evidence that the Machination’s secret mechanoid benefactor is Scorponok; he was up to virtually the same scheme on Nebulos in the Ultra Magnus Spotlight.

-The Skywatch organization and Joshua Red unearthed Ravage and Laserbeak in 1985, as shown in the Soundwave Spotlight.

-Sixshot appears to be stationed on the same orbital platform as his Spotlight issue, and the Reapers appear to be keeping track of the Six-Changer’s movements.  Looks like we’ll be seeing more of them in the next story arc.


Hearings:

-Prowl mentions that he doesn’t outrank Hot Rod.  This is because all squad leaders are ranked the same, according to Simon Furman.  And Hot Rod had his own squad at one time, as seen in his Spotlight issue.  So Prowl, Hot Rod, and Springer are all the same rank, although Prowl sometimes likes to think he’s a cut above, as seen in the Kup Spotlight.

-Ore-13 is revealed to be basically the same as Ultra-Energon, as Megatron experiences its weakness in this issue.  As revealed in Stormbringer, the power source is only suitable for short intense bursts of power, and continuously engaging an enemy using Ore-13/Ultra-Energon will cause them to burn through it eventually.  Thunderwing was stopped the very same way in Stormbringer # 4.

-It’s likely the surgery performed on Hunter was to facilitate the Headmaster ability, as evidenced by the headless drones the Machination is creating.

-The Reapers appear to have an ulterior motive than simply destroying Earth; they are going to let Sixshot do it, then “harvest what remains”.  Are they referring to the Ore-13 deposits or something else?

Wreck and RULE!:

-Another solid script by Simon Furman for the most part.  Character interaction is of course, always fun to behold, particularly between Prowl and Hot Rod.  Megatron continues to get some pretty cool dialogue (“For this ignominy…heads must roll.”), although Furman drops a bit of cheese on us here and there (Prime‘s “Megatron…burn!”), but that really should be expected of him by now.  And a bunch of intriguing plot threads are seeded or otherwise touched upon.  Unfortunately, now we have to wait about three months to see at least one of them picked up (In the Galvatron Spotlight).  I’m particularly interested in that encounter Prime had in limbo.  Supposedly it will be elaborated on in September’s Optimus Prime Spotlight, but I don’t wanna wait!

-EJ Su’s art is pretty fantastic, but the coloring still seems a bit bland.  I know they’re trying to go for that “Earthy” look, but I’d bet EJ’s pencils would pop more with say…Josh Burcham’s coloring.  In any case, he renders the Reapers quite ably in the one panel they are in, and Megatron and Optimus look particularly awesome as always.

-I got a post from the IDW message boards printed on the letters page!  Huzzah!


Wreck and ROT!:

-While a pretty solid tale on its own, Escalation still suffers from a bunch of side plots and questions that aren’t answered within its confines.  The ending in particular with the Reapers popping up seemed a bit tacked-on.  This burst of unanswered plot points is of course because the main IDW Transformers Gen 1-verse is considered an “ongoing”, but the arcs are split up into mini-series and renumbered just for easier sales and to give the creators a rest in-between stories.  While this is good business sense on IDW’s part, it does seem a little frustrating that we have to wait for the answers until the next story arc.

-Prowl mentions how Megatron has no substantial long-range weapons left and can’t use his gun mode without someone to aim him.  That always just seemed silly to me; if Megatron’s got the energy to mass-displacement, how hard would it be to attach mini-thrusters or an anti-gravity unit to your alt-mode?

-Skywarp is mistakenly colored as Thundercracker again for the panel where he peels off to go retrieve Megatron from the battlefield.

-Are the chains holding Laserbeak and Ravage in place made of adamantium or something?  And I sure hope someone disabled their weapons too.  My guess is they are being kept at low enough power levels that they can’t escape from the pit.


Final Judgment:

Escalation concludes with more questions than answers, but it was still quite the enjoyable ride along the way.  Mr. Furman and Mr. Su can take a well-deserved rest and leave us fans hotly debating where the loose ends are going to end up in the next two story arcs; Devastation and Revelation.  I already discussed my gripes with the unanswered plot points, but the story kept me much more entertained than Infiltration, so I guess I can shelve those complaints for now.  Now we’ve got a short break in the action to enjoy the first two issues of Megatron: Origin.  Peace.


An Ore-13 burned-out Thunderwing review