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I swear to God, Brad! I don't have your money!
"The Route of All Evil"
Publisher	Dreamwave Productions
First published	December 1, 2004
Cover date	December 2004
Story	Brad Mick, Adam Patyk
Pencils	Don Figueroa
Inks	Elaine To
Colors	Espen Grundetjern, Rob Ruffolo
Letters	Ben Lee
Continuity	Dreamwave continuity
Chronology	Modern era

Megatron violently arrives on Earth. Autobots begin construction of Autobot City, and the true reasons for the Great War are revealed... but then Dreamwave goes pear-shaped.

Synopsis

On a rainy Earth island, Starscream grills his soldiers, the Combaticons, regarding their sloppy performance against Sunstorm. Starscream introduces the team's new training partner: a restrained Sky Lynx. The combat exercise begins, and Sky Lynx separates into his dual beast modes, easily besting the poorly performing Combaticons. With the exercise failed, Starscream reactivates the energy dampers installed on Sky Lynx. Unable to defeat Sky Lynx, the Combaticons have no hope against the newly arriving Predaking.

At the Decepticon base, Soundwave ignores Starscream's radio call for help, and having changed sides once again, is now loyal to Megatron.

At the Pentagon, Marissa Faireborn comes under pressure from one of her superiors for the loss of the EDC Night Force Unit. Marissa defends her performance, making a point to mention dear, sweet Jazz. The Colonel disregards Marissa's crush and instructs her to reactivate her grandfather's Project: Centurion. Marissa objects, but Buster convinces her otherwise.

So the Planet Bruticus storyline leads to World War Bruticus and then...

In Alaska, Brawn and Ratchet bring Jazz's team of Autobots to Prowl, who shows the Autobots to the future site of Autobot City, a massive establishment to house the Autobots on Earth. In the background, Omega Supreme is aiding in the construction, showing the scale of the endeavor.

The Combaticons fight valiantly against Predaking, combining into Bruticus. Starscream tries to retreat, and Bruticus covers his commander's escape by crumpling Predaking's wings. The two titans lay into each other, but using spiked knuckles to rend metal, Predaking wastes Bruticus.

Starscream returns to base and comically slips on the floor. Soundwave, instead of helping, aims a familiar gun and fires a shot that blows through Starscream's torso. With Starscream leaking mech fluid, Megatron reveals himself. Even injured, Starscream is able to gloat about his knowledge of Megatron's plans involving the Matrix. Megatron reveals that even Shockwave has been enslaved, and to level everybody's perspective, he explains how everything started.

Let's hope nobody in the crowd tosses a Ratbat on stage.

Millions of years ago and prior to the Great War, Megatron, a champion gladiator, noticed that the Cybertronian sports he was participating in were distracting the public from the Council of Ancients' forbidding the Transformers from accessing the more ancient areas of Cybertron. Investigating the purpose of this, he ignored the restrictions and ventured deep into the planet.

There, he found the ruins of a long-lost era of Transformers, and from within he recovered an artifact and evidence that the recorded origin of the species was a myth placed to cover the truth that the Council of Ancients were corrupted by the Quintessons. Returning to his home, Megatron fought off an attempt on his life sent by the Council to silence his revelation; this act of aggression led Megatron towards the formulation of his army.

I see a little silhouette of a man.

On Cybertron, a familiar shadow discovers Blitzwing's head.

As Megatron finishes his revelation, Starscream mentions Sunstorm. Megatron knew of Sunstorm, and a prophecy that matches Sunstorm's M.O. With more questions, the two turn to answers from Sunstorm's creator, Shockwave.

In the "Handle" of the Autobase, Ultra Magnus appoints Kup and the Dinobots to establish a moon base facility. Hot Rod is disappointed to be put on security, jealous that Springer is free to get to know Arcee. Observing the appointments through the eyes of a spy, the Quintessons ready their extraction team.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

• Starscream's reference to the Combaticons' rebirth on an island is a nod to the episode "Starscream's Brigade".
• Colonel Witwicky is clearly Buster Witwicky, who in the previous issue was mentioned by Spike to have joined the military. Look, you can see a picture of presumably Spike and Sparkplug (RIP) on his desk. Naturally, he's pissed at the Transformers for the death of his father in the Ark II explosion.
• Project Centurion: Colonel Witwicky's computer displays an Exosuit as Spike and Daniel Witwicky wore in The Transformers: The Movie. Art from unpublished issues revealed a large number of these suits developed.
• Autobot City is clearly going to be Metroplex, as some of the Autobots working on the construction are looking at a holographic schematic of Metroplex.
• Soundwave manages to talk again.
• Starscream believes Megatron has plans for the Matrix? Does the Matrix have some connection to that big glowing purple goo pit thing? Sure.

Atlas Comics.

How come all the other issues didn't have so many panel scans on this wiki?

• Megatron's flashback:
  • Hey, that's Megatron's design from The War Within, with a few extra paint apps.
  • In gladiatorial combat, Megatron is defeating Cy-Kill, as he would do again in IDW Publishing's Megatron Origin.
  • Hey, a Golden Disk—possibly the third one to be introduced into the continuity, not including the two from Beast Wars.
  • The two giants (statues? deactivated Transformers?) are Dai Atlas and Deathsaurus, from the Japanese lines.
• Weird that the last (chronologically) issue that Dreamwave ever published has a flashback leading into the very first.

• The shadow recovering Blitzwing belongs to Sixshot, who was last seen as a tank that the Dinobots hijacked from Octane.
• Chicas!
• On the "Prime Transmissions" page, reader mail is answered by Copy Editor Matt Hansen.
• The "Next issue" blurb on the "Prime Transmissions page", the teaser image for next month is the cover to #10 instead of #11.
• The "Wavelengths" page has a column from the desk of Ernst Dabel.
• The Dinobots are drawn to be incredibly HUGE. Kup is as tall as Swoop's waist and Snarl's knee. Wheelie is roughly the size of Grimlock's hand (hmmmmmmmm). Ultra Magnus is the only non-Dinobot in the room that is not dwarfed by them.
• It's not clear whether or not the Combaticons survived this battle. However the damage done to Bruticus seems like it would be pretty fatal for at least one or two of the Combaticons.
• This issue set up numerous interesting plotlines involving the Female Autobots, Shockwave's experiments, Sunstorm's relation to the Covenant of Primus, Megatron and Earth's connection to Cybertron... And then the company fell through.

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• Killzone comic
• Energon #30
• Transformers/G.I. Joe: Divided Front #3, which was never released
• The Age of Wrath #4, which was never released
• Dynamic Forces Dreamwave exclusive covers
• A five-page special preview for Warlands: Malagen's Campaign
• Transformers: Generation ongoing #12, which was never released (back cover)

Reprints

• This issue, along with the rest of Volume 3 was never reprinted or collected due to the bankruptcy of Dreamwave. Various attempts by IDW Publishing and Hachette to reprint this material have also failed due to the creators never getting paid. In fact Hachette had to adjust the content of their Definitive G1 Collection due to these issues.