Fragmentation (G1)

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Titanium Series, here I come!
"Fragmentation"
Publisher	Dreamwave Productions
First published	October 8, 2003
Cover date	October, 2003
Writer	Simon Furman
Pencils	Andrew Wildman
Inks	Erik Sander
Colors	Espen Grundetjern, Rob Ruffolo, Ramil Sunga
Letters	Benjamin Lee
Editor-in-chief	Roger Lee
Continuity	Dreamwave continuity
Chronology	The Dark Ages

Optimus Prime removes himself and Megatron from the board, causing the two factions to break into six. A burning darkness emerges.

Synopsis

Before, at Polar State: Kaon, Optimus Prime heroically dives at Megatron, throwing the two together through an early space bridge. Unable to process the unexpected higher occupancy, the portal explodes. Long after the area is abandoned, a crack in space opens up, letting The Fallen return.

Years later, on an operation at a spaceport on Moon Alpha, Kup questions the existence of a higher power and Cybertron's role in the larger universe. Grimlock pulls Kup's head out of his ass the proverbial clouds.

Hound returns to the Autobase, with news of a Decepticon mobile assault base. But Prowl is unable to spare extra soldiers ever since the Wreckers and L.S.C. broke off from the Autobots with the absence of Optimus Prime.

On Orbital Torus State: Kalis, Bludgeon leads Bugly and Mindwipe in a dark ritual. The Fallen crashes their pagan party and recruits the three to be his henchmen.

Starscream and his crew of Predacons transport a shipment of raw energon to the spaceport, but after landing, they find their receiving team has already been killed by Grimlock's gang. As Grimlock and Starscream shout at each other, Ironhide and Wheeljack jack the energon transport, leaving Starscream very, very angry.

Deep within Cybertron, The Fallen leads his underlings to the Well of All Sparks and tasks them with the retrieval of Grimlock for his role in the Unbinding.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"So I ask you—what's it all about?"
"...Right here, Kup, right now... it about Energon."

— Kup and Grimlock

Notes

Continuity Notes

• Though this issue gives no suggestions as to how long the gap between War Within #6 and the opening of this issue is, Transformers: The Ultimate Guide gives the date as being around 7.4 million years ago
• Iacon is still in ruins after Starscream's power play back in the previous miniseries.
• That Wheeljack, Ironhide and Kup are with the Lightning Strike Coalition isn't much of a surprise. The three had already been good buds with Grimlock.
• Now what's with that Space bridge Megatron's built, eh? The comic never gives full details, but the final issue of Age of Wrath released reveals Optimus and Megatron's end destination was Quintessa, and unreleased scripts from Simon Furman showed Megs was going to make a deal with them to deliver Cybertron's core in exchange for an army.
• The Fallen's appearance gets some context shone on it some issues down the line, with the Fallen confirming that it was Megatron's mucking about with Space Bridges that freed him from imprisonment. So that's why he shows up in the exact place the space bridge goes kablooey, rather than it just being coincidence.

Transformers references

• Grimlock almost accidentally calls Swoop Divebomb—this is a nod to the Marvel UK story, "What's in a Name?".

Other trivia

• The "Wavelengths" section contains an article from the desk of penciller and character designer, Don Allen Figueroa.
• The "Declarations of War" page has reader mail answered by Matt Moylan and has a rendering of Optimus Prime by Jeffrey Englert.
• Furman previously wrote a story about Optimus Prime tackling Megatron through a space bridge in the Marvel UK series.
• One of Starscream's Predacons is named Stormbringer, a name that Furman would reuse later for the IDW mini-series.

Covers (4)

• Cover A: Double-sized, wrap-around cover of Jetfire and some major players from the series. Art by Don Figueroa, Erik Sander and Alan Wang.
• Cover B: The Dynobots in their Cybertronian forms. Cover by Pat Lee (with Elaine To and Rob Ruffolo).
• Incentive Cover: The Fallen by Pat Lee, Erik Sander and Rob Ruffolo.
• Dynamic Forces Cover: by Andrew Wildman, Erik Sander and Alan Wang, featuring the Autobots at Prime's funeral (limited to 3000 copies).

• 

  Now how is Jetfire supposed to use his right hand?

• 

  Sludge is pissed that Pat Lee drew them as balloon-bots. So are we, Sludge, so are we.

• 

  The Fallen's magical floating sword.

• 

  Don't the Autobots know about the many deaths of Optimus Prime?

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Reprints

Other than reprints of the full series

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