Transformers (2023) issue 13

« Transformers #13 »
Publisher	Image Comics Skybound Entertainment
First published	October 9, 2024
Cover date	October 2024
Written by	Daniel Warren Johnson
Art by	Jason Howard
Colors by	Mike Spicer
Letters by	Rus Wooton
Editor	Ben Abernathy
Continuity	Energon Universe

As he lays dying from Soundwave's attack, Starscream's mind flashes back to an earlier time in his life, just before he joined the Decepticons...

Synopsis

At a meeting of the Decepticons, Soundwave rips out Starscream's guts and sends him tumbling over a nearby cliff. Beaten, weary, and delirious, Starscream lands on the ground below, narrowly avoiding a nearby pool of lava, and memories of his past start bubbling up...

On the dying world of Cybertron, a bot named Ulchtar is doing some work when his friend Genvo urges him to come see something that happens only once every two hundred years. Though initially insistent on completing his job, Ulchtar relents when his other friend Jetfire insists that they make his last night on Cybertron one to remember. The trio head to Moonbase Two to get the best view, and begin discussing the fighting that's been happening on the planet of late: though his brothers have refused to join a side, Ulchtar himself hasn't heard much of anything; Genvo insists that Ulchtar join his side, citing their one-of-a-kind leader and the fact that him and Ulchtar would make an incredible team; and Jetfire states that his path is already decided — using maps laid out by Ulchtar, he'll be traveling the stars in search of a conflict-free solution to their planet's issues. Genvo starts questioning if there even is anything to find out there before he notices some Turbosects and begins squashing them before Ulchtar, who considers them to be beautiful, harmless creatures, intervenes. Just then, the moment they were waiting for arrives: a titanic robot flies overhead, and Ulchtar suddenly gets an idea. Wanting the large robot to see them, he breaks into an ammunition depot for the Cybertronian Defense Force and uses one of their grenades to hopefully create enough commotion for the robot to take notice. Ulchtar succeeds, and the giant robot reciprocates the group's wave of "hello" before the depot's cranky old guard chases them off. Soon after, Jetfire wishes his friends farewell, and flies off to begin his mission. Ulchtar is sad to see him go, but he thankfully still has Genvo around...

Some time later, Ulchtar heads outside to find a battle involving Genvo's faction has erupted, and a stray missile destroys his lab. Before Ulchtar can get any answers, Genvo grabs his friend and runs... but gets shot for his trouble. Genvo praises Ulchtar for "screaming the stars into seeing us", and dies in his friend's arms. While in grief over the loss of his friend, Ulchtar looks up to see the apparent culprits: a red-and-blue robot and his followers...

The shock of this memory awakens Starscream from his trance long enough for him to pull himself away from the lava, his legs having been melted in his stupor, before he falls unconscious. Seizing the opportunity, a group of humans that had been observing Starscream begin hoisting his body onto their tank. Horton, the group's commanding officer remarks to Private Martin that his father was a genuine American hero, with Private Razz chiming in that that was before being recruited by M.A.R.S. Unfortunately, Private Clayton loses hold of Starscream's body, setting the commanding officer off: despite how celebrated and worshipped his father was in both life and death, he's been given command of this lowly, good-for-nothing salvage unit for his troubles... but with the power of Starscream now at his disposal, that's about to change.

With his work destroyed and his only planet-side friend dead, Ulchtar ponders his future. Just then, a silver robot bearing the insignia of Genvo's faction approaches him, offering revenge for his friend and clan as a Decepticon warrior. The robot transforms into a tank-like pistol small enough for Ulchtar to hold, and asks what his brothers called him. Inspired by his friend's dying words, he gives his answer: his name is Starscream.

Featured characters

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

Quotes

"Dumbass techno pups!"

—Kup harshly insults the rambunctious Ulchtar and his friends as they make their getaway.

"Y-you did it, Ulchtar— you yelled at the gods."
"What...?"
"You screamed the stars into seeing us."

—Genvo praises his friend Ulchtar as he dies in his arms.

"My father was a legend. Celebrated, remembered, worshipped, even in death— And what do I get?? Command of this piece of crap unit! Relegated to SALVAGE???!!! With these nincompoops!"
"Sir, we—"
"This is an embarrassment. I should be at the top! All that changes now. Look at all this power at my feet."

—The commanding officer of the M.A.R.S. salvage team rants to his privates about how he's been mistreated... and how he's going to turn his fortunes around.

"What's left for me now? What am I going to do?"
"You can join us. You can avenge your friend and your clan. You can be a warrior of the new Decepticon order. Tell me, young one. What did your friends call you?"
"My name— is Starscream."

—Ulchtar Starscream is conscripted by Megatron into the Decepticon ranks.

Notes

Continuity notes

• This issue opens with the very end of Soundwave and Starscream's duel in issue #7, revealing that Starscream didn't fall to his death as it initially seemed. Most of the issue's actual story, meanwhile, takes the form of a flashback to the burgeoning days of the war on Cybertron, with a few pages towards the end returning to the present day an indeterminate amount of time after the Decepticons left Starscream for dead.
• Being the first substantial flashback to before the Ark crashed on Earth that we've seen, this issue suggests a fair amount of information about the war without stating any of it outright. Specifically, it reinforces the general implication in prior issues that Cybertron had been slowly dying, and that the conflict had broken out over the ideological conflict on how to address it.
• Ulchtar mentions his "brothers" when discussing the growing conflict with Genvo and Jetfire. Whether or not he's referring to his fellow seekers isn't immediately clear, but if he is referring to them, then that makes Starscream and Soundwave tearing Skywarp apart in issue #4 even more disturbing than it already was.
• Jetfire's mission to find a way to save Cybertron was established all the way back in issue #1. As we know from both that issue and the first issue of Void Rivals, he'll eventually crash land on an unknown planetoid and enter stasis before being reawakened by Darak and Solila millions of years later, then eventually find his old friend among a number of his kind aboard the crashed Ark on Earth.
• Omega Supreme's appearance gives us our first real good look at what the Guardians look like in this continuity. A far-away shot of the war on Cybertron extracted from Megatron's memories in Cobra Commander issue #1 previously depicted one of the generic blue-and-white Guardians, but here we get to see just how big they are in this iteration, easily the largest in the franchise's history. Intriguingly, Ulchtar and his friends exclusively refer to Omega using the gender-neutral pronoun "they", raising a million different questions about this Omega's gender identity and how they fit into this version of the lore. They refer to Omega Supreme with male pronouns after he waves in the trade paperback version, however.
• Kup and Bumblebee's present-day selves previously appear in issue #7 and issue #1, respectively. Kup as a member of Elita One's squad on war-ravaged Cybertron, and Bumblebee as one of the Ark's dormant crew members. Considering that both also die in those issues, flashbacks like these are probably the only way we're ever seeing them again.
• Similarly, the recently-wrecked Shockwave appears alongside Genvo and a robot clearly modeled after (but with slightly different colors from) Overcharge. Per Jason Howard, however, this is actually Blitzwing. As for his Overcharge-esque palette, he chalks it up to "the colorist [getting] the colors a little wrong," or an editorial choice.
• This issue gives us a look at Optimus Prime leading the Autobot war effort on Cybertron, with him fighting alongside Bumblebee and a robot who we're assuming is a "Cybertronian mode" version of Jazz, given his visor, chest headlights, and what appears to be a toy-inspired over-the-shoulder cannon (though the comic's version looks nothing like the toy's cannon).
  • Considering the framing of the artwork and how early in the war these flashbacks have to take place, this depiction of Optimus seems to be meant to line up with Elita's description of him last issue as having been "ruthless" at an earlier point in his life.
• While the perception of the Autobots as "evil" has been shown as a general viewpoint amongst the Decepticons, the first arc showed Starscream to have been especially aggressive on this point, to the point of prioritizing fighting them over survival. Genvo's death provides us with the reason why this is.
• The G.I. Joe side of the Energon Universe finally rears its head eleven issues after Duke's unfortunate encounter with Starscream in issue #2, with a crew of heretofore-unheard-of M.A.R.S. Industries salvage workers recovering Starscream's body. Seems Destro was finally able to track down that "robot that turned into a jet" that led to Duke giving him so much trouble...
• Megatron finally makes his first proper, alive-and-fully-active appearance in the main Transformers book. He initially appeared as a shadowy figure in a flashback in issue #2, he was seen frozen in ice in issue #4, he was revealed to be in Cobra-La captivity in Cobra Commander issue #1, and we finally learned of what befell him in the Transformers segment of the 2024 Energon Universe Special.

Transformers references

• The idea of Starscream as a scientist-type who was close friends with Jetfire before the war broke out is taken wholesale from the Generation 1 cartoon episode "Fire in the Sky".
• In one of the deepest cuts this series has done so far, Starscream's original, pre-Decepticon name is revealed to be "Ulchtar", taken directly from Jim Shooter and Denny O'Neil's original Transformers treatment.
• Moonbase Two debuted in The Transformers: The Movie.
• The group Ulchtar and his friends raid is referred to as the "Cybertronian Defense Force", who are possibly named after the similarly-named Cybertron Defense Force from Transformers: Cybertron.
• Kup refers to Ulchtar and his friends as "dumbass techno pups", a deliberately crude twist on his classic "turbo-revving young punk" remark from the 1986 movie.
• Megatron's alt-mode rather tongue-in-cheekily hybridizes its classic and modern depictions, being a pistol with a tank-shaped body (complete with totally unnecessary treads!).

G.I. Joe references

• The tank the M.A.R.S. salvage crew are using is, of course, a H.I.S.S. tank, Cobra's signature vehicle. It doesn't appear to be based on any particular version of the vehicle, and has been modified from the traditional look by replacing the turret section with a radar dish and the crane the crew are using to try and haul away Starscream.
• While the captain of the M.A.R.S. crew goes conspicuously unnamed, he alludes to the fact that his father was "a genuine American hero" before being recruited by M.A.R.S, a clear evocation of the G.I. Joe franchise's usual "A Real American Hero" tagline. Though the captain is not immediately recognizable as an existing Joe character, he (or at least his father) may have some sort of connection to America's daring, highly-trained special mission force.

Errors

• On Page 9, Ulchtar's eyes are briefly shown as red well before he's joined the Decepticons.
• Ulchtar renaming himself "Starscream" at the end of this issue raises a minor quibble regarding issue #1: how did Jetfire know to call him that when he reactivated him? He still went by "Ulchtar" when Jetfire left Cybertron, and there's no indication the two ever made contact with each other after that!
• Francesco Mattina has clearly used generative AI to create the Cover E version of this issue. In the history of the Transformers brand we've seen some pretty lackluster things here and there, but given his history of art plagiarism and controversy with DC Comics^[1], this is a new low. Mattina's Megatron is plagued with asymmetrical inconsistencies with key tells including:
  • Somehow, a second right shoulder is there between Megatron's chest and his actual arm.
  • The connection point for the left arm to the chest is a joint above where the left shoulder would be. The left arm also appears to have a second elbow somewhere between the wrist and actual elbow.
  • His five right fingers are cube-shaped while his left hand has only four digits that have rounded tips. Additionally, Megatron's left fingers are all curled rather than at the knuckle joints, and is somehow able to hold an Energon cube with his awkward hands.
  • The left and right sides of Megatron's torso are different from each other.
  • The red lining of Megatron's upper knee joint is segmented into three parts, but his left knee doesn't have that same detail. Meanwhile, his left knee has two black and red squares on each side of the "boot" when his right knee doesn't.

Other trivia

• The topic of "mass conversion" comes up again at the end of this issue's letters page, just as it did in issue #9... and said description is copied nearly word-for-word from what was printed in that issue, meaning that Skybound once again uses this wiki's own description of how the process was explained by Dreamwave's More than Meets the Eye. Once was already weird, but twice, with basically the exact same wording, just four months after the first instance of it happening? Good grief.
• The M.A.R.S. officers would probably not be able to survive standing that close to lava inside what appears to be an active volcano, especially with no protective gear (let alone the cat they brought for some reason).

Covers (32)

• Cover A: The wrecked, barely-standing body of Starscream, by Daniel Warren Johnson & Mike Spicer.
• Cover B: Genvo, Ulchtar, and Jetfire watch as Omega Supreme flies overhead, by Jorge Corona & Mike Spicer.
• Cover C (1:10 Copy Incentive): Connecting cover, by Viktor Bogdanovic.
• Cover D (1:25 Copy Incentive): A very '80s-inspired Soundwave, by Jorge Fornés.
• Cover E (1:50 Copy Incentive): Megatron with some energon cubes. From Francesco Mattina, but very likely created using generative AI tools, given his then-recent controversy with DC Comics.
• Cover F (1:100 Copy Incentive): Optimus Prime, by Homare.
• Cover G: Blank sketch cover.
• Cover H: Genvo charges into battle, by Ludo Lullabi.
• Second Printing Cover A: by Jason Howard.
• Second Printing Cover B: by Jason Howard.
• Third Printing Cover: by Michele Rubini.
• Big Time Collectibles Cover A: by John Giang.
• Big Time Collectibles Cover B: by Björn Barends.
• Big Time Collectibles Cover C: by Mico Suayan.
• Big Time Collectibles New York Comic Con 2024 Cover A: Foil Virgin Variant, by John Giang.
• Big Time Collectibles New York Comic Con 2024 Cover B: Foil Virgin Variant, by Björn Barends.
• Big Time Collectibles CGC Signature Series Cover: Foil Virgin Variant, by Mico Suayan.
• East Side Comics / The Comic Corner / The Comic Mint Cover A: by Alan Quah.
• East Side Comics / The Comic Corner / The Comic Mint Cover B: by Alan Quah.
• Epikos CCG / Nirvana Comics / Syndicate Comics & Collectibles New York Comic Con 2024 Cover: by Deegan Puchkors.
• Heavy Mental / High Horse Comics & Games / Joey from Pico Cover: by Juan Gedeon & Carlos Cabrera.
• TopShelfComic New York Comic Con 2024 Cover A: by Livio Ramondelli.
• TopShelfComic New York Comic Con 2024 Cover B: by Erik Elizarrez & Alex Sinclair.
• TopShelfComic New York Comic Con 2024 Cover C: by Erik Elizarrez & Alex Sinclair.
• TopShelfComic New York Comic Con 2024 Cover D: Foil Virgin Variant, by Erik Elizarrez & Alex Sinclair.
• The 616 Comics Cover A: by Tiago da Silva.
• The 616 Comics Cover B: by Tiago da Silva.
• Davis Rider Comics / Pressable Defects Comics / Very Gary Comics New York Comic Con 2024 Cover: by Ivan Tao.
• Webster's Vault New York Comic Con 2024 Cover: by Sajad Shah.
• Dimension X Comics, Toys, and Collectibles New York Comic Con 2024 Cover A: by Patricio Delpeche.
• Dimension X Comics, Toys, and Collectibles New York Comic Con 2024 Cover A: Foil Virgin Variant, by Patricio Delpeche.
• The Comic Corner New York Comic Con 2024 Cover: by Bill Sienkiewicz.

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  Somewhere, Marvel UK's Soundwave would've felt proud.

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• 5-page preview of G.I. Joe issue #1.

Reprints

• Transformers Volume 3: Combiner Chaos (May 14, 2025) ISBN 1534329897 / ISBN 978-1534329898
  • Collects Transformers issues #13–18 and the Transformers story from Energon Universe 2024 Special.
  • Trade paperback format.
  • Variant covers:
    • Direct Market Exclusive: by Daniel Warren Johnson & Mike Spicer. ISBN 978-1534332683

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  Volume 3: Combiner Chaos – cover art by Daniel Warren Johnson & Mike Spicer

• 

  Volume 3: Combiner Chaos Direct Market Exclusive – cover art by Daniel Warren Johnson & Mike Spicer

External links

References