Primal Prime's army grows by one, and Tarantulas's scheme continues.

Synopsis

Primal Prime, Airazor, and Tigatron reactivate a downed stasis pod, from which Ramulus emerges. Ramulus nearly attacks them all, then curses Optimus Primal for seemingly abandoning him on this world. The other Maximals calm him, and head for another pod reading. The pod turns out to be empty, and the group comes under attack from Ravage, Razorclaw, Spittor, and Iguanus. Primal Prime prepares to join the fray, but Tarantulas attacks, making quick work of him with his enhanced Vok powers. The Vok realize they have made a mistake, as Tarantulas rips the Matrix of Leadership out of Primal Prime and gloats about the coming end of days.

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Characters mentioned but not seen: Primus, Optimus Primal and the Vok.

Continuity notes

• Since Primeval Dawn takes place before the Wreckers storyline, Ramulus is in the green-and-blue color scheme that he initially sported in that series. See "Transformers references" below for more information.
• Most of the stasis pods were thought either destroyed or mutated by the quantum surge unleashed at the end of season 1 of Beast Wars. However, see errors.
• Primal Prime has visions of Unicron, setting up the Universe storyline, although by the time this was released, the first issue had already been published.
• Spittor appears here for the first time chronologically, showing up as a member of the Wreckers. Why he defected is unknown, but next issue seems to provide at least some clues.
• Tarantulas is stealing the Matrix for his "dark master" Unicron—the second issue of the Universe series would show he at least succeeded in getting to Unicron.

Transformers references

• Ramulus's colors are those of an unreleased running change variant of his toy. That version of the figure had long-since been cancelled by the time this story was published, but its earlier use in chronologically-later The Wreckers issues means it has to stick around.
• Spittor is in his Transmetal 2 body, as is Iguanus.

Errors

• Tigatron seems to confuse the quantum surge with the transwarp wavefront unleashed by it.

Other notes

• This strip was published in the "Director's Cut" edition of The Wreckers #2, appearing behind "Betrayal" as a backup story.
• This story follows directly on from the original Primeval Dawn comic strip, ignoring the events of Primeval Dawn II, which was intended to be the first in a series of animated "motion comic" sequels. For reasons unknown, that project was abandoned following its 2002 debut, leaving the storyline untouched for two years until eventually being picked back up again in regular comic strip form, under new writer Simon Furman.