Lord of Misrule: Test Flight I

In Iacon's medical center, Cyclonus keeps a solitary vigil as Flatline does what he can for Provoke. Though the medic theorizes that Provoke was running off of extra energon reserves when she fell, his final prognosis is grim: he might be able to salvage her spark, but two megacycles of protective stasis may have corrupted her mind and body beyond any hope of repair.

In Crystal City, Optimus Prime welcomes Ultra Magnus back to Cybertron. Prime fills him in on what has transpired since he left the planet: Megatron has overthrown the Senate and driven the Autobots from Iacon, while Jhiaxus and his followers have spearheaded similar uprisings in Tarn, Stanix, and the Tagan Heights, incarcerating political opponents as they go. The Autobots are fighting back where they can—Pyra Magna and her soldiers are organizing an evacuation from Protihex, while Wheeljack and Hound have turned the city of Darkmount into a refuge for organics and neutral Cybertronians—but despite these small victories the Autobots lack the resources and firepower to muster a coordinated resistance. Ultra Magnus has his doubts, but notes that the takeover has left him without a government to support and ultimately decides to support the new Autobot leader in his fight. When Magnus asks why Optimus released Pyra Magna from prison, Prime notes that her own quest for atonement has made her a dependable ally—and her fanatically loyal Companions are useful assets in their own right. Even now, Pyra's lieutenant Jumpstream has volunteered for a risky solo mission in Praxus...

At Praxus's Academy of Applied Technology, Perceptor explains his plan to amplify Jumpstream's teleportation abilities—though Strongarm and the other security guards sent to protect them don't share his belief that his latest experiment will work. After ordering them outside, Perceptor continues: during the recent attack on the Senate, Shockwave amplified Ion Storm's electromagnetism powers by over-fuelling him on energon. Perceptor's new teleportation hybrid-rig works on the same principle; by combining energon, Nucleon, and some reverse-engineered Thraal teleportation technology, this harness will massively overcharge Jumpstream's powers and allow her to instantly transport soldiers and supplies across vast distances, and potentially giving the Autobots the edge they so desperately need. First, however, they'll need to make a test run. Outside the academy, Bumper eagerly shows off his replacement arm to Sideswipe, but the older Autobot gets the cadet off his back by ordering him to make a patrol circuit around the building. Once he's gone, Strongarm points out that Bumper's latched onto Sideswipe; although Sideswipe doesn't think he's cut out to be a role model, their conversation is cut short when Jumpstream materializes in front of them. Jumpstream fumbles with the controls for a few seconds before reappearing in Perceptor's lab; as she tries to explain that the safety cut-out's malfunctioning, Perceptor prepares to manually siphon the fuel while warning her that uncontrolled, rapid-fire jumps could burn out the harness entirely, stranding her in unspace or even some alternate reality—but Jumpstream vanishes again before he can finish his sentence.

In his underground laboratory, Shockwave has taken custody of Sunstorm; his containment tube churns with radioactive energy as he pleads for Shockwave to release him, babbling that he can share his "understanding" with Cybertron. Shockwave has other ideas, however, and leaves to interrogate Slipstream and the other members of her team for more information regarding their misadventure on the Winged Moon. On the surface of the bunker, Jumpstream briefly flickers past Flamewar as the young Decepticon argues with her teammates, each new jump taking her further and further from Praxus: she narrowly avoids a swarm of feral Insecticon clones by teleporting away, then winds up thousands of feet above the White Tower in the Sea of Rust, teleporting to safety mere seconds before she hits the ground. As her jumps grow faster and more erratic, Strongarm and the other security 'bots burst into the lab to see Perceptor hunched over the console, trying to chart each new teleport using the harness's built-in tracker. Suddenly, Perceptor loses her signal completely: wherever she is, she's not on Cybertron.

Somewhere, Jumpstream careens through unspace—briefly drawing the attention of a shadowy form—before the teleport rig finally runs out of fuel, causing her to crash-land in an unfamiliar metallic landscape. As Jumpstream gets her bearings, however, the Autobot realizes that she's in Iacon... but not the Iacon she knows. This city is a burned-out ruin, illuminated only by glowing pillars of purple energy and strewn with corpses—including the severed heads of Pyra Magna, Ultra Magnus, Kup, and Strika. Jumpstream recoils in horror from the sight and loses her footing in the process; when a familiar hand helps her to her feet, she's at first relieved to see Sunstreaker... but soon realizes that "Sunstreaker" is just one of several Cybertronian slaves under the control of a Voin asserter! Though Jumpstream demands an explanation, the Voin barks for her to be quiet as it escorts her through the ruins, towards the crumbling remains of the Senate building, where two Seekers shove her before a crude throne. Jumpstream immediately recognizes the shadowy, red-eyed figure before her as Megatron, but the nearby "Onslaught" corrects her: their bodies might persist, but their individual minds are long gone. "Shockwave" steps forward to reveal the truth—together, they are Exarchon, lord of Cybertron!

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Threefold Spark	Others
Optimus Prime (9) Arcee (12) Sunstreaker (13) Pyra Magna (14) Kup (15) Hound (16) Wheeljack (17) Perceptor (18) Bumper (19) Sideswipe (20) Jumpstream (21) Strongarm (22)	Ruckus (2) Kaskade (3) Jhiaxus (10) Blitzwing (11) Sunstorm (23) Shockwave (24) Onslaught (25) Hyperdrive (26) Flamewar (27) Blackjack (28) Runamuck (30) Runabout (31)	Voin asserter (33) Sunstreaker (34) Heavywait (35) Skywarp drones (36) Exarchon (37)	Flatline (1) Cyclonus (4) Provoke (5) Chromedome (6) Ultra Magnus (7) Victory Leo (8) Insecticon clones (29) Skywarp (32)

Quotes

"I take orders from governments. If I can't live with them, I quit. And I get one vote to change things. Same as everyone. Not much, one vote, but I'm attached to it. Seems Megatron's taken it away. So I'm with you, easy or not."

—Ultra Magnus

"Conceptually, it's very simple."
"Don't say things like that, Perceptor. That's inviting the universe to demonstrate that it's not."

—Perceptor and Strongarm

"And anything Shockwave can do, I can do better. Except possibly cloning. Which is illegal."

—Perceptor

"So?! So? I'll tell you so. Me and Shadow Striker were on team Sixshot and it was no fun! Team Six? Team Shot? Whatever. Top to bottom, side to side, all the way through... no fun!"

—Flamewar

"Perceptor! I am going... TO KILL YOU!"

—Jumpstream has a bad trip

"M-Megatron? Oh, damn."
"Damned. Yes. But Megatron? Not Megatron."
"Onslaught?"
"He is long gone. I am EXARCHON."

—Jumpstream meets... well, take a wild guess.

Notes

Continuity notes

This issue is preceded by a recap page of the story so far. It also gives a timescale for how long ago the War of the Threefold Spark was, more than two megacycles, and in a slightly more important detail also reveals that the Threefold Spark is not the name of Exarchon's followers or organization, but his title.
The story picks up forty cycles after the end of issue #30, which ended with Optimus Prime and his forces making a complete withdrawal from Iacon after a final, failed peace conference with Megatron. Since then, Prime and his forces have relocated to Crystal City.
Gutcruncher and Roadtrap stumbled across Provoke's body in the final scene of issue #29 while poking around in the ruins of the Memorial Crater.
The unconscious bodies of Ruckus and Kaskade appear during scene in the medical center. The pair were deliberately silenced by Soundwave during a standoff in issue #14; they last appeared in issue #19 in a comatose state.
Flatline notes that Ratchet, Hoist, and most of the other medical workers walked out instead of serving the Decepticons—the first issue of Transformers: Escape featured a tense standoff between Hoist and Gutcruncher's group of Decepticons. While Hoist subsequently joined the cast of the Escape miniseries, issue #26 also showed Ratchet and Fixit taking in Optimus Prime's first speech. Presumably, they've also joined the Autobot resistance during the timeskip.
Ultra Magnus recently starred in the "Storm Horizon" arc of Galaxies; after rescuing Alpha Trion from the Black Sphere, he and his crew returned to Cybertron seventy cycles behind schedule and discovered that Megatron had overthrown the Senate in their absence. Magnus's first mate Chromedome and Colonial Security heavyweight Victory Leo make barely-visible cameos alongside Magnus, but there's no sign of Trion or Magnus's prisoners Spinister and Octane. Perhaps they're still aboard the Fist of Iacon?
Since we last saw her and her family in Galaxies, Arcee has returned to active duty as a member of Pyra Magna's Autobot militia. She's fighting alongside Kup, another ex-soldier who retired at some point after the end of the War of the Threefold Spark.
As a result of IDW's ongoing scheduling delays, this comic comes out two weeks before the final issue of the Transformers: Escape miniseries and spoils the ending by revealing that Straxxus has vacated Darkmount, leaving Hound and Wheeljack to turn the city into a neutral sanctuary for civilians and organic aliens. The Insecticon clones that attacked Darkmount, meanwhile, have gone feral, dispersed across the planet, and remain a persistent threat to Autobots and Decepticons alike.
Perceptor refers to Ion Storm's electromagnetic attack on the Senate in issue #23, and speculates that the enhanced power he displayed might have been the result of Shockwave over-fuelling him on energon.
Perceptor notes that cloning is illegal—as per Escape issue #3, we know that Shockwave and Exarchon cloned Skywarp during the War of the Threefold Spark. More recently, Shockwave's experimented with cloning the Insecticons and taken on the ever-mysterious Soundblaster as his Igor, who may or may not be a clone of the original Soundwave.
Sideswipe risked his life to rescue Bumper from Clench's artillery barrage in issue #25; he's sporting some hastily welded patches across his chest, shoulder, and legs to cover the wounds he sustained, while Bumper's got an entirely new right arm after he lost it to a railgun slug.
Sunstorm last appeared in issue #27, where he took a direct hit from a microsingularity created after Lancer and the other members of the engineering crew destabilizied the Winged Moon's artificial gravity system. In that issue, Slipstream and the other Decepticons noted that he was hot to the touch; since then, his corrosive radiation powers have continued to develop as his sanity deteriorates.
Flamewar bristles at the idea of returning to Iacon to work for Sixshot; she and Shadow Striker worked with him in issues #8 and #9, which established Sixshot's propensity for smacking his subordinates around.
The Voin that takes Jumpstream prisoner is shown using the heavily armed "asserter" module that appeared in #14. In this alternate universe, however, the Voin have progressed beyond their ape-like "slaved organics" and use Cybertronians instead, including Sunstreaker and Heavywait.
Multiple Seekers in the ruins of alternate-universe Iacon sport Skywarp-like color schemes; it's likely that these are versions of the Skywarp drones that fought in the war.
Numerous characters have speculated that Exarchon, the villain who kicked off the War of the Threefold Spark, might still be out there: Cyclonus voiced his belief that Exarchon was still alive in issue #7, and in issue #25 the "Mediator" that dwelt within the Matrix of Leadership told Optimus that Exarchon had not yet returned to the Allspark. Is Exarchon native to this universe, or did he too somehow find a way to cross dimensions?
The reveal that Exy is a body-snatcher clarifies a few details about the character, such as Pyra's comments in the previous issue about how not everyone served him "willingly", and his attempted usurpation of the Titans which led to the death of Croaton, as was established in issue #24. It also give a hint as to just what he'd been planning to do with Megatron in the flashback shown in issue #15.

Transformers references

Perceptor briefly discusses how some 'bots like Jumpstream possess unusual powers at birth. The previous IDW universe had previously touched upon this concept through "outliers"; in keeping with this more egalitarian depiction of Cybertronian society, however, Cybertronians with abnormal powers appear to be called "prodigies", as per an exchange in issue #20.
Upon learning that her teleport rig uses Nucleon as a fuel source, Jumpstream notes that she doesn't want to get mode-locked. Perceptor points out that it takes sustained amounts of Nucleon abuse over a long period of time to affect one's physiology—a bit of in-universe justification to explain how the substance sometimes creates Action Masters but can also be used as some kind of recreational drug.
Perceptor speculates that Jumpstream's teleports temporarily take her through unspace—while the term originated in Marvel's The Transformers comics, the concept's recently returned to prominence within the overarcing Transformers mythos: within the last two years, the Cyberverse cartoon, War for Cybertron, and IDW's own Beast Wars comic have all used the concept to refer to the "void" between different realities within the Transformers multiverse.

Real-world references

This three-issue arc likely takes its name from the real-world religious tradition associated with Christmas celebrations in medieval Britain.

Errors

On page five, Jumpstream's dialogue misspells "Nucleon" as "Nucelon".
Throughout the comic, Flamewar is missing the yellow flame-pattern stripes on her chest.
For the most part, Anna Malkova's been consistently drawing both of the Battlechargers with the same head design (Runamuck's to be specific) in this series. However, in their brief appearance here on a page by Angel Hernandez, Runabout's got his unique head design again. Annnnnd that also means their colors are mistakenly swapped here.

Other trivia

Originally solicited for May 19, this issue arrives one month late.

Covers (3)

Cover A: Jumpstream, by Diego Zúñiga and Sid Ven Blu
Cover B: Jumpstream arrives in an alternate reality, by Chris Panda
Retailer incentive cover: Ultra Magnus and Optimus, by George Caltsoudas

Reprints

Transformers Volume 5: Horrors Near and Far (June 8, 2022) ISBN 168405883X / ISBN 978-1684058839
- Collects Transformers (2019) issues #31–36 & Annual 2021, Transformers Halloween Special, and Wreckers—Tread & Circuits issues #1–4.
- Bonus material includes alternate covers.
- Hardcover format.