Dark Amber Leo Prime (First)

« The Transformers: End of G1 Universe Chapter One part 1 »
"Dark Amber Leo Prime (First)" ダークアンバーレオプライム（前） (Dark Amber Leo Prime (Zen))
Publisher	TakaraTomy
First published	July 6, 2022
Manga	Hayato Sakamoto
Color	Lebanon Sugi (1.2.3.4.p), Gufu Kandagawa (4.6p), Josh Perez (5.9.10p), Tai Koshii (7.8p), Yuki Ohshima (13p)
Editor	Kouji Nimura
Continuity	Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity
Chronology	The End

In the midst of a dying universe, does a new hero rise...?

Synopsis

In the far-distant future, in a dying universe drained of its energy, a blue bird flees a fallen spaceship with a large container in tow to a wasteland of a planet. This world is known as Earth, and the bird is Bluebolt, a young Maximal. Bluebolt releases the container's cargo, which is the lifeless body of the Legendary Green Lion, the Great Convoy known as Leo Prime, savior of the Earth and the Universe. Bluebolt is desperate to save the universe from its encroaching death, and the only option left is to use the remnant of Unicron's energy that was blocked by the Moon from escaping long ago to revive the leonine hero. As Bluebolt draws a magic circle, the Predacon hyena known as Untite arrives, attracted by the smell of Leo Prime's decaying corpse. Bluebolt immediately recognizes him as a fabled carrion-eater; the hyena notes that Earth has been the site of many a Transformer battle and is thus overflowing with corpses to consume and both understand that Leo Prime would be quite the meal for him.

With his powers over the dead, Untite summons a buried Seeker—a giant compared to the Transformers of this era—to restrain Bluebolt as he approaches the green lion. However, Bluebolt notes the circle is already complete and it lights up... to reveal a living black lion! Bluebolt is elated at Leo Prime's apparent resurrection, but the black figure doesn't take well to being expected to help and sternly clarifies that his name is Dark Amber Leo Prime. The Energon Matrix inside him, however, isn't as callous, and the pain it inflicts on this seemingly new being inducts Dark Amber to save the hapless Maximal from the undead Decepticon, brushing it off as gratitude for bringing about his existence.

Untite has his own thoughts about Dark Amber Leo Prime's identity, believing him to be the one who made him a Cyborg Beast that can only consume the dead—Unicron. Dark Amber isn't too clear on the whos and whats of the past, so he just takes Untite at his word, but the hyena realizes that the being he's confronting is "incomplete". Reasoning that he can kill and consume Dark Amber to get his power, he attacks and leaves the newly born Dark Amber weakened by his wounds. Desperate to save the dark hero, Bluebolt gives an offer of self-sacrifice for Dark Amber to consume Bluebolt's body, so that Dark Amber may use Bluebolt's energy to heal. Dark Amber finds this a ridiculous proposition and something that his body's "conscience" refuses to allow to happen. Instead, the black robot transforms into beast mode and... digs into the ground?

Turns out that Dark Amber has carried over quite a bit from Unicron himself... including the ability to acquire energy from consuming planets, no matter how small a part of it he munches on. Revitalized, Dark Amber Leo Prime uses his mighty Angolmois Amber Claw to slice the Seeker into ribbons, to Bluebolt's delight and Untite's consternation.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Continuity notes

• As per the title, End of G1 Universe seems to be the grand finale of the great Japanese Generation 1 cartoon continuity in its entirety, somewhat fitting with the last installment, Generations Selects Special Comic, explaining the universe's origins.
• Leo Prime is referred to by his various appellations, including the "Legendary Green Lion" (established in "Legend! The Green Warrior" and explained in finale of Selects) and "Great Convoy" (a title bestowed on Lio Convoy in "Graduation Ceremony!!" by the god of Cybertron, Vector Sigma). His name at this point is Leo Prime, not Lio Convoy, as this story takes place long after the character took up the latter name in the universe of Transformers: Prime, as explained by the bio for his Arms Micron toy. He would continue using it during his adventures in the Legends comic. Going by his appearance in this comic, it would seem that Leo Prime returned to his regular Beast Wars II body at some point after Legends.
• Earth having remnants of Unicron's Angolmois Energy is the result of a long-running plot point originally established in Beast Wars Neo, where it was stated that Gaia's Angolmois Energy first shown in Beast Wars II ultimately originated from Unicron. At the end of that series, it was stated that all of the Angolmois Energy was extracted from the planet by Nemesis, but it is explained here that a small portion was left on the planet due to Artemis moving the Moon to block the flow of Angolmois Energy to the artificial planet, as shown in "Farewell! Lio Convoy".
• What's more, Bluebolt states that the Earth has lost its power ever since the Angolmois Energy was released from the planet. Prior to the aforementioned Unicron origin, Beast Wars II originally declared it to be the "sacred life energy" of the planet. Later retcons by the Transformers Legends series would suggest this to be the case for another substance known as Gaia Energy, which the Angolmois Energy had been merged with back when it was buried within the Earth, and that this composite Gaia/Angolmois Energy was also the same thing as Chichōkon, the mystical power of the Earth from the Super-God Masterforce series.

Transformers references

• We'd be remiss if we didn't note the amazing similarity to the concurrently running Last Bot Standing comic by IDW Publishing. Both stories take place in a dying universe sapped of its resources, and the last remaining Transformers scrounging whatever energy they can find on a wasteland planet. Coincidence or inspiration?
• Bluebolt is a virtual redeco of Kingdom Deluxe Class Maximal Skywarp. Not made explicit in the comic, but originally in a rough draft, is Bluebolt being a future incarnation of God Magnus's weapon.^[1] Traces of this intention made it to Dark Amber Leo Prime's profile, where Bluebolt is described as a "Universal Weaponizer", much like how the original device was a "universal weapon".
• The ship Bluebolt flees from is based on the Prime: Beast Hunters Cyberverse Vehicle toy Sky Claw.
• The white container housing the dead Leo Prime/Great Lio Convoy is taken from Return of Convoy Micro Trailer (minus the tractor unit).
• Untite is a virtual redeco of Beast Wars Deluxe Class Jawbreaker. The mold's Transmetal 2 design is used to establish him as a Cyborg Beast, a team of machine/beast fusions from Beast Wars II that were the result of imbuing vehicular Predacons with Angolmois Energy. The Cyborg Beasts were not directly connected to Unicron in that cartoon, but Untite here recognizes Unicron as the reason for his conversion to a Cyborg Beast, seemingly reviving an unused concept from Beast Wars Neo wherein a servant of Unicron was to have had a Cyborg Beast-styled design before being ultimately dropped and replaced by the Blentrons.
• The markings Bluebolt draws on the ground is a recreation of the Halo of Primus, as seen in the Power of the Primes toyline.
• Unusually for Japanese fiction, Bluebolt, Untite, and Dark Amber Leo Prime use the English-language activation codes of "Maximize" (マキシマイズ) and "Terrorize" (テラライズ), here referred to as "Henshin Codes" (変身コード). Traditionally, characters in the Beast Era who had beast modes just used henshin (変身, "transform", unofficially localized as "metamorph") to call out their transformations—while vehicular Transformers used the English word "transform" (トランスフォーム).

References

External links

• Dark Amber Leo Prime (First) at the Masterpiece website
• Dark Amber Leo Prime (First) translation
• Lettering of the translation by MrRald