First Strike issue 6

It's chaos at the core as Scarlett leads the fight to stop Colton's team from enacting their plan... but one of Colton's allies has been hiding a magical secret that is about to change everything.

1 Synopsis
- 1.1 Coda: "The Signal"
2 Featured characters
3 Quotes
4 Notes
5 External links

Synopsis

Refusing to back down, Joe Colton orders his followers to attack the heroes barring their way to Cybertron's core. While Colton and Scarlett go head-to-head, individual battles break out; Soundwave finds his sonic attacks useless against Storm Shadow; Shazraella contemplates taking over Arcee's body once she defeats her; Destro opens fire on Optimus Prime; Garrison Kreiger hacks Matt Trakker and Gloria Baker's masks; and Lady Jaye and Roadblock take on Miles Mayhem. Colton and Scarlett, meanwhile, take out each other's weaponry and end up grappling their way through a close-quarters knife-fight, all the while fighting with words as well as fists and blades. Scarlett refuses to let Colton commit genocide on an alien race, but Colton insists that Earth will never be able to endure the Transformers' presence; Scarlett counters that even if he accomplishes his goal, it is pointless because Earth is part of the cosmic community now, and aliens are going to keep coming to the planet. That is irrelevant to Colton: he reveals that—unbeknownst to his cohorts—his plan will result in his and all their deaths, and he is willing to do it if it buys Earth even just a few more years.

At that moment, Elita One, Starscream, and Obsidian arrive to join the fight. Starscream intends to have everyone arrested, while Elita is dead set on killing the invading humans—but fortunately, before she can open fire on Colton and Scarlett, the fighting Shazraella and Arcee crash into her. Prime tries to restrain Elita, which gives Trakker the opportunity to unleash the alien techno-virus he has brought with him. It quickly infects Elita's systems, placing her body under Gloria's control and turning her against her allies. While Obsidian attacks Optimus Prime, Kreiger breaks from the group and runs toward the Talisman, intending to activate it there and then; Colton attempts to stop him, insisting they need to reach the core first, but when Scarlett reaches out to grab the distracted Colton, she inadvertently stabs herself on his knife. Fighting through the pain, Scarlett grabs the alarmed Colton's wrist, pulls the blade from her gut, and wrenches it out of his fingers. Realizing she cannot save Colton from himself as she had hoped, Scarlett struggles on despite her wound, and manages to stab Colton's prosthetic hand with his own knife, pinning him to the ground. She pounds him into submission, and demands he order his allies to stand down... but Colton informs her it is too late.

"Wow, Kreiger came from another planet?"
"Uh... I guess..."

Kreiger stands before the Talisman and utters a rhyming incantation that activates it. Trakker, Roadblock, and Jaye try to stop him, but with a gesture, Kreiger erects a forcefield to keep them away. As shimmering light-images of different animals dance in the air around the Talisman, a terrible light floods from it throughout Cybertron, tapping into the planet's energon and placing it at Kreiger's command. As everyone watches, Kreiger's form shifts and changes; finally, he declares, he can shed the disguise he has worn for centuries and assume his true identity: an ancient alien wizard known as Merklynn! Using the power of the energon and the Talisman, Merklynn changes the substance of the world around him, recreating the landscape of his long-lost homeworld, Prysmos. This, he explains to a dumbfounded Colton, was always his plan—though he had intended to trigger the process within Cybertron's core, thereby transforming the whole planet, he is content with recreating this small pocket for now. Soon, he proclaims, his followers—his "visionaries"—will arise, and from this "New Prysmos", they will launch a crusade to eradicate the technology of first Cybertron, then Earth, and then the rest of the galaxy, bringing about a "new age of magic."

Merklynn teleports all the combatants back to Cybertron's surface, where Colton—thoroughly defeated, having realized all his efforts were for nothing—surrenders. Mayhem is about to put up a fight, but the sight of Elita's primed blaster being aimed at his face quickly changes his tune. All the villains are taken into custody, but it is a pyrrhic victory: Cybertron's energy levels have been seriously depleted by Merklynn, making their alliance with Earth more necessary than ever, and the threat of "New Prysmos" looms large, a self-contained portion of another planet within Cybertron, cut off by an energy wall the Transformers cannot penetrate. Aware of the heavy toll that has been taken, the downhearted Joes return to Earth via the Spacebridge, but Scarlett and Trakker hang back a moment after the rest of the team has stepped through. Trakker assures her that the hurt she feels over Colton's fate means she is still a good person, unlike him; Scarlett, on the other hand, observes that even when Colton's knife was buried in her side, he hadn't been able to finish the job and kill her, suggesting that he had not truly gone past the point of redemption. Trakker tells her to accept the pain that knowledge brings her as part and parcel of human imperfection—after all, it's better than if he actually had killed her. Scarlett thanks him for fighting by her side, and the pair enter the Spacebridge together.

Coda: "The Signal"

Death comes for all.

Concurrent with Merklynn's activation of the Talisman, on the surface of Cybertron, Windblade and Metroplex detect the massive energy loss. Amazed and horrified to discover that nearly half the planet's energy has disappeared in the blink of an eye, Windblade orders Metroplex to figure out what happened to it, and the Titan is quick to deduce that it was beamed off into space in the form of a communication signal. At Windblade's instruction, Metroplex decodes the message, which proves to be two simple words: "Welcome. Death."

Somewhere in the unknowable reaches of space, the signal finds its mark, striking a dark world on the edge of a black hole. "Death" has received its invitation.

Unicron awakens.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	G.I. Joe	M.A.S.K.	The Iron Ring	Others
Arcee (7) Optimus Prime (10) Ironhide (19) Windblade (21) Metroplex (22)	Soundwave (11)	Scarlett (1) Roadblock (9) Lady Jaye (13)	Gloria Baker (8) Matt Trakker (12)	Storm Shadow II (2) Joe Colton (3) Miles Mayhem (4) Destro (5) Shazraella (6) Garrison Kreiger/Merklynn (14)	Elita One (15) Starscream (16) Obsidian (17) A Badgeless (18) Marissa Faireborn (20) Unicron (23)

Quotes

"They say you are a god to your people."
"'They' are misguided."
"Unfortunate; I've always wanted to kill a god."

—Destro and Optimus Prime

"We've never won a fight with them, Scarlett. And we never will. You can't win a fight against a flood or an earthquake. All you can do is endure. And Earth can only endure so much."

—Joe Colton

"We came here because I thought I could save you. But there's nothing left of you but excuses. We're supposed to be better. You asked us to be better. And I'll carry that flag even though you've dropped it!"

—Scarlett, to Colton

"Whispered secrets of a shattered age, I summon you: renew this sage!"
"I don't know what that creepy guy is doing, but rhyming is never a good sign!"

—Kreiger and Roadblock

"I told you, Joseph, technology is the impostor. One that your pathetic world has willingly enslaved itself to. I couldn't pry it from its fiber-optic noose with seven Talismans. And I would gladly sacrifice your precious Earth... and what's left of your soul... to restore even a fraction of Prysmos. Rest assured, Colton. My visionaries will rise and consume this world, and then, yes, then... we will have what we need... to bring about a new age of magic throughout the galaxy."

—Merklynn

"Nothing... it was all for nothing. And it's... my fault."
"I will accept that as your witnessed confession."

—Colton and Starscream

"You idiot! You can't give in to these things!'"
"Are you quite sure about that?"
"I mean... of course, I surrender."

—Miles Mayhem and Elita One

"Let's get back before Shipwreck tries to bake a sugar-free, gluten-free, cake-free 'welcome home' cake."

—Lady Jaye

Notes

Continuity notes

The techno-virus Gloria uses to control Elita was previously mentioned in issue #2. It was introduced in the 2017 M.A.S.K. annual.
The revelation that Kreiger is actually an eons-old alien wizard is evidently why previous mentions of his past were couched in vague terms; Hasbro Heroes Sourcebook #2 said he "claimed" he was the son of German immigrants to the United States; Revolutionaries #5 had him say he was "alone in this world"; and last issue, he refrained from giving his place of birth and called himself an "alien" to America. In that same story, he also referred to looking forward to "many worlds to conquer"; looks like his language wasn't as metaphorical as it seemed!
Kreiger alluded to the Talisman being magical, rather than technological, in First Strike #0. We don't blame you if you don't remember, because that's literally the only place that idea has been put forth despite the Talisman appearing throughout Revolutionaries for half a year before First Strike.
The Joes joke about Shipwreck's terrible cooking, which has been a running gag over in G.I. Joe vol. 5 since its first issue.
Matt jokes that Scarlett is seen as a "snow queen", and remarks that she can't be an "ice queen" because the name is taken—a reference to V.E.N.O.M. member Vanessa Warfield, who uses "Ice Queen" as her codename in IDW continuity.
Oh dang! It's the big one! The dark lord! The chaos-bringer! Unicron himself finally makes his on-panel debut in IDW continuity after twelve years, to set the stage for the Transformers: Unicron coming in 2018. There have been multiple allusions to Unicron's existence in IDW history, typically in the form of oblique references to "Primus's opposite"—something that began in The Death of Optimus Prime, and was most recently reiterated in Optimus Prime #10. Additionally, five years prior, lots of visuals associated with Unicron were used to depict the destruction of the planet LV-117 in Robots in Disguise #10.
Unicron is shown orbiting a black hole. Does this have some connection to the dead world orbiting a "black star" of "infinite darkness" that has been mentioned multiple times in Robots in Disguise and Optimus Prime—a mystery linked to the looming threat of Onyx Prime, who himself is connected to the Talisman?

Transformers references

In "The Signal", Cybertron is drawn based on how it appears in the Aligned continuity family. That's an incongruous choice, though; "Aligned" Cybertron is covered in circular cities, so its appearance is a poor match for IDW Cybertron, which is meant to be a wasteland with one functional population center.
Unicron appears only in planet mode, and he's got the same basic "grey and orange metal world with horns and gaping maw" look he's always had across Transformers history, but with one notable difference; he is partially covered with a rocky crust, with organic matter such as trees visible on the surface, broken chunks of which float in orbit around him, forming a version of his classic planetary ring. Later revelations would show that this Unicron is an organic world (akin to his depictions in the Prime cartoon or the The Last Knight movie), with his normal metallic form being hidden beneath a surface-level crust (as was the case in the Armada cartoon).
A scream from Cybertron sent out into space and awakening Unicron? Sounds familiar.

Hasbro franchise references

Roadblock's line about rhyming (quoted above) seems like a joke aimed at his characterization in the original G.I. Joe cartoon, in which he often spoke in rhyme (similar to Blaster). Roadblock also notes that Scarlett won't let him replace Shipwreck as cook, referring to the character's history as a gourmet chef, which has been part of his backstory from his introduction to the Joe franchise.
The end of First Strike is direct set-up for the upcoming Transformers vs. Visionaries mini-series, introducing the 1987 franchise Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light into IDW's Hasbro Universe. There's a lot to unpack here:
- In the original Visionaries series, the alignment of the three suns of the Earth-like alien world of Prysmos caused the release of a burst of radiation that deactivated all technology on the planet, plunging it into a feudal state. With the end of the "age of science", the ancient (and morally grey) wizard Merklynn awoke and ushered in the "new age of magic", providing the warriors of this new world with magical powers—animal totems into which they could transform, and power staffs they could call upon by reciting certain incantations. In this new version of events, on the other hand, Prysmos was ruined long ago, and Kreiger is revealed to actually be (a far more outwardly villainous version of) Merklynn, who has been hiding on Earth for centuries and seeks to bring a "new age of magic" to the whole galaxy.
- The incantation Kreiger/Merklynn recites to activate the Talisman ("Whispered secrets of a shattered age, I summon you: renew this sage!") is that used by Leoric, the heroic leader of the Spectral Knights, to activate his power staff, which would summon a mystic owl that could answer any question posed to it.
- The animal images that appear around the Talisman are the totems of specific Visionaries characters: an eagle (Arzon), a cheetah (Witterquick), a lion (Leoric), a gorilla (Cindarr), a wolf (Feryl), and a dolphin (Galadria). All these characters (and more!) were confirmed to appear in the upcoming mini-series by promotional art.

Errors

On page 2, when Arcee and Shazraella first face off, the former is missing her back kibble.
On page 8, Kreiger's name is misspelled "Krieger". This is corrected in the trade paperback.
On the "Roll Call" page for "The Signal", Metroplex's image is that of Cybertron.

Other trivia

As First Strike comes to a close after six issues, let's give it a round of applause for shipping every issue on time, on a tight bi-weekly schedule, with no delays—something most of IDW's monthly ongoing titles haven't managed in a long time!
For this issue, the four-page epilogue (sub-titled "The Signal") takes the place of the "Origins of Evil" back-up strip that ran in the other five issues of the series.

Covers (7)

Cover A: Heroes united, and also Rom is there! By Freddie E. Williams II and Jeremy Colwell
Cover B: Scarlett and Optimus face down Colton and Elita over the Talisman, by Max Dunbar and Ander Zarate
Cover C: Scarlett versus Colton, by Alex Ronald
Cover D: Optimus, Elita, Scarlett, and Colton, amped up and bulked out, by Rob Duenas

Last one in the pool is a rotten Egg Beast.
It's over, finished!
Whoever wins, pizza is on Soundwave.
Reading this issue on an LSD trip.

Retailer incentive cover A: Scarlett referees a thumb war between Optimus and Colton, by Jay Fosgitt
Retailer incentive cover B: Scarlett and Colton fight over the Talisman, Davidé Fabbri and Thomas Deer
Retailer incentive cover C: Shazraella versus Arcee, by Ilias Kyriazis