Shattered Glass II issue 1

« Transformers: Shattered Glass II #1 »
Publisher	IDW Publishing
First published	August 31, 2022
Cover date	August 2022
Written by	Danny Lore
Art by	Andrew Griffith (pg. 1, 4-5, 7, 9, 11, 14-15) Marcelo Matere (pg. 2-3, 5-6, 8, 10, 12-13, 16-20)
Inks	Gigi Dutreix[1]
Colors	John-Paul Bove
Letters by	Jake M. Wood
Editor	David Mariotte and Riley Farmer

As the Autobot warlords race to control the newly activated Metroplex, Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers spearhead a coup against Optimus Prime.

Synopsis

Optimus Prime might have built up an army, overthrown the Senate, and bent Cybertron to his demented will, but none of it would've been possible without Ultra Magnus, who considers himself the real power behind the throne. Once a quiet bureaucrat, Magnus found himself increasingly emboldened by Orion's quest for power; his ability to pinpoint the loopholes in Cybertronian police codes allows Orion and the Autobots to push the limits of due process and have made him an invaluable ally. Although senator Shockwave pays his friend a visit to warn that Orion is taking advantage of him, Magnus takes offense at the idea; when Bumblebee interrupts the conversation to bring Magnus another question from Orion, Shockwave—aware that Magnus has gone down a path he can't follow—quietly takes his leave.

As Orion's army takes shape, Magnus finds himself climbing the ranks, until the day he found himself thrust into a position of power when Orion appoints him to be the public face of a new security unit assembled to keep order by any means necessary. Initially, Magnus objects to the proposition... but Orion reminds him that he is not the innocent 'bot he sets himself up to be and that he secretly enjoyed puzzling out new ways to circumvent Cybertronian law. As Prime brushes his face, he warns that the emotionless hologram he wears to conceal his true face might just crack someday. A few days later, however, when Shockwave runs afoul of Magnus's private unit after a run-in with the press, tensions swiftly escalate when Shockwave criticizes Magnus's latest promotion and earns himself a swift rebuke from Impactor. As the situation spirals out of control, Magnus sputters for everyone to stop, but a snide remark from Kup pushes him over the edge. Magnus' calm façade finally shatters—literally—as he drops his ever-present hologram to reveal his true face, then drops Impactor by throwing Kup at him. Watching the fight from safe distance, Shockwave coldly asks if Magnus really wanted them to stop... or if he was too cowardly to admit he secretly enjoyed the violence. When Wheeljack asks what they'll do with Impactor, Magnus tells his men that it's time he makes some real changes.

When Orion lays into Magnus for daring to dismiss Impactor and re-organize "his" squad, Magnus points out that Orion is no longer their official leader—when he transferred command, Magnus's new position included the right to dismiss uncooperative or insubordinate 'bots like Impactor from the newly-christened "Wreckers". Amused by Magnus's insolence, Orion agrees to test Magnus's newfound bravado by including him and the Wreckers in the next part of his plan: a full-scale assault on the Senate. While the Wreckers storm the building, Magnus takes it upon himself to find and capture Shockwave—and although Shockwave's no fighter, he's courageous enough to try and remind Magnus of the good person he used to be, and the sanctity of the laws he used to care about—but a single swing of Magnus's fist easily shuts up his one-time friend. The job done, Magnus hoists Shockwave's unconscious body over his shoulder and carries him off, confident that the brain-altering empurata procedure will shut him up for good.

In the present day, Ultra Magnus and his Wreckers have arrived at the gates of Pax to demand an audience with Optimus Prime regarding recent developments. Although Sunstreaker and Whirl try to keep them out, their citation of Autobot law only enrages Magnus, who growls that the law is what he says it is. Before the argument can escalate further, Optimus himself puts through a call to Sunstreaker, with orders to escort Magnus and one Wrecker of his choosing—Jazz—to the throne room, leaving the rest of his crew with nothing but a terrified Whirl for company. Inside Prime's fortress, Magnus delivers a report to a bored Optimus regarding recent events: while Metroplex's reactivation has sparked a new race between the three Autobot warlords to control the mighty Titan, the fall of Gold City has afforded Megatron and the Decepticons the chance to regain a foothold and potentially reignite the war. Although Optimus scoffs that Goldbug was weak, Jazz breaks rank and shouts that Optimus owes Magnus: after all, Ultra Magnus and his Wreckers helped hand the city over to Prime during the war, but this comment finally provokes Prime's wrath, and the Autobot tyrant finally rises from this throne to backhand the insolent Autobot across the room.

Although Magnus and Jazz take their leave, Magnus mulls over his role in the coming conflict—when Jazz sardonically points out that Prime wants the Wreckers fighting Goldbug's Titan, Prowl's own breakaway faction, and Megatron's Decepticons, Magnus decides that enough's enough and finally reveals his true plan. On his orders, the rest of the Wreckers promptly swing into action as they overwhelm the guards outside the fortress, easily dispatch the guards, and storm Optimus's inner sanctum. Furious that his old ally has finally shown his true colours, Optimus takes it upon himself to remind his treacherous subordinate of his place; when Optimus accuses Prowl of putting Magnus up to the task, however, the assertion enrages Magnus, who roars that he won the war for Optimus, before finally felling the Autobot leader by ramming him into his own throne. As Prime falls, the triumphant Wreckers take in the sight as a new Autobot leader rises to take his place—and, as Magnus crushes Prime's prone body under his foot, he prepares to put the next step of his plan into play...

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashback.

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Optimus may find your obsession with the letter of the law amusing, Whirl. I, on the other hand, find it a pathetic waste of processing power left over from the old days of the war. We did away with those that recite the law but don't understand it a long time ago."

—Ultra Magnus

"Jazz, give the word."
"With pleasure... you heard the boss, boys—WRECK AND RUIN."

—Ultra Magnus and Jazz

"Ultra Magnus, please, I know you still care about the good. You can stop this."
"Do you truly believe that? You shouldn't be so honest about how much this hurts you."

—Shockwave versus Ultra Magnus

"Ultra Magnus, you have no idea what you're—"
"Oh no, Orion Pax. You're wrong. I always know what I'm doing."

—Optimus versus Ultra Magnus

Notes

Continuity notes

• When we last left off in 2021's Shattered Glass #5, Goldbug had used the information encoded on Starscream's spark to reactivate the Titan Metroplex after fleeing the newly liberated Gold City—unaware that his own lieutenant Slicer was really a mole in the employ of Ultra Magnus, who had his own enigmatic plans for the Titan and the Autobot warlords seeking to control Cybertron. Megatron's return is briefly alluded to here, and Prime's disdain for Goldbug stems from Goldbug's failed attempt to assassinate him, as seen in a flashback in Shattered Glass #4.
• Ultra Magnus's Wreckers made a cameo in Shattered Glass #1 as a rival gang of bounty hunters Blurr briefly encountered while trawling the Static Zone for kills. While this issue does feature Kup in the present day segments, Springer only shows up in a flashback, and the 'bot we surmised to be Roadbuster doesn't appear at all.
• Rodimus was last seen as a casualty of the conflict on Earth in Shattered Glass #2. He turns out to have survived, none the worse for wear, in the present here.
• A conversation between Orion Pax and Megatron in Shattered Glass #2 had Megatron accuse Optimus of pulling strings to remove Shockwave from power, only for the emotion-suppressing empurata procedure to go awry and leave him with a hyperdeveloped sense of empathy instead. This issue expounds on Shockwave's origin story—notably, it reveals that the "secret police" Megatron spoke of were actually Ultra Magnus and the Wreckers.
• Ratbat's appearance in this issue, as one of the many Senators dying at the hands of the Wreckers, ties in with Megatron's claim that Ratbat ran for office at some point before the war in Shattered Glass #2. However, see "Errors" for more on this.
• Whirl makes his first on-panel appearance, after first making a cameo on a pro-empurata poster in Shattered Glass #2. Fittingly for a mirror universe, he's depicted as a cowardly, by-the-books sort, contrasting his characterization as a reckless, mentally unstable 'bot in More than Meets the Eye.

Transformers references

• Shattered Glass Ultra Magnus debuted in BotCon 2012's Invasion comic, and remained a major player throughout the rest of Fun Publication's Shattered Glass meta-lore up until its end in 2016. In that story, his grotesque, skeletal face was a disfiguring scar sustained after a failed attempt to depose Optimus himself. While the original version of the character was a vague riff on Robots in Disguise Ultra Magnus, IDW's take on the character hews much closer to his characterization in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye by depicting him as a bureaucratic tightwad-turned Judge Dredd-style lawman. Notably, this version of the character incorporates the two swappable heads from his most recent toy by explaining that Magnus conceals his real face beneath an emotionless hologram.
• Ultra Magnus leading a version of the Wreckers hearkens back to "Target: 2006", where he was closely associated with the team. In addition to mirror-universe versions of traditional mainstays like Springer, Kup, and Impactor, the original lineup also features Wheeljack, likely in reference to his Prime counterpart, and Bumblebee—which might be a reference to his status as a Seeker in the original Shattered Glass stories. By the present day, the team's grown to include Sandstorm, Drift, Jazz, Ricochet, and a goateed Rodimus, who once led the Wreckers in Fun Publications' original Shattered Glass stories. Their corrupted mirror-universe catchphrase, "wreck and ruin", likewise originated in the Shattered Glass prose story "Dungeons & Dinobots".
• This issue provides our first look at Senator Shockwave before his empurata—continuing the series' ongoing "Shadowplay" and "Chaos Theory" riffs, his original body is based on how Shockwave appeared in those flashbacks, but with the colors of his positive-universe counterpart after empurata.
• While trying to intimidate Sunstreaker into letting him pass, Magnus briefly mistakes him for Cordon, a mirror-universe version of the Japanese-original Sunstreaker redeco.
• In the third flashback, Shockwave's accosted by two reporters in the employ of ABN, a fair and balanced news network that debuted in Fun Publications' "Around Cybertron" feature. You'll probably recognize Laserbeak, but you might not recognize the little camera-bot next to him; although Shockwave misremembers his name as "Flashback": it's actually a bizarro version of the Armada bit character Flashbox, who was, via a Transformers Collectors' Club profile, established to have once been an intrepid reporter who worked alongside his universe's Laserbeak.
• While arguing with Magnus, Shockwave compares his new unit to "rabid DeathEagles", bird-like creatures first namedropped in Beast Wars: Uprising.
• Beyond Ratbat and Shockwave, other visible casualties of the Senate attack include Shattered Glass versions of Proteus from More than Meets the Eye, Decimus, from Megatron Origin, the diplomat Crosscut, and, in the upper left corner, a just-barely visible Tomaandi from the Marvel comics.

Real-world references

• Author Danny Lore has cited the film Fight Club—the story of a white-collar office worker's split-personality descent into violence and anarchy—as an inspiration for Ultra Magnus's character arc.^[2]

Errors

• In Shattered Glass issue #2, Megatron got into trouble with the law when he led an anti-empurata protest outside the Senate building. In a subsequent conversation with Orion Pax, Megatron cited Shockwave's empurata as part of the rationale behind the protest, only for Orion to wave off his accusations entirely. This issue's depiction of the event—a full-scale assault on the Senate, replete with multiple dead and dying Senators—makes it difficult to imagine how Orion could keep such an blatant act of terrorism quiet enough he could dismiss the incident as mere rumor. Notably, in Shattered Glass #3, Starscream and Jetfire visited the Senate building in the immediate aftermath of Megatron's empurata protest to secure funding for their archeological research.
• Ratbat makes an appearance as one of the many Senators in the building at the time of the attack; in Shattered Glass #2, however, Ratbat appeared as one of the many protesters outside the building, and Megatron mused that he was, at some point afterwards, elected to serve as a Senator. Given this, it's possible that a timeskip's been retconned in between the first and second flashbacks in Shattered Glass #2, so that Megatron's been in jail at least twice and Orion's actually bailing him out for some other reason, which would go a ways toward untangling the multiple discrepancies in this scene.
• On page fifteen, Shockwave's dialogue is missing a comma between "enough" and "Senator".
• When Magnus takes out Shockwave, he refers to his leader as "Optimus", at a time when Orion Pax had yet to adopt that name.
• Ricochet is drawn sometimes with his normal head (the same as Jazz) or like Golden Disk Collection Jackpot's toy head.
• Inker Gigi Dutreix is accidentally left uncredited, with their name only included on the Hasbro Pulse variant cover.

Covers (4)

• Cover A: Make way for Magnus, by Nick Brokenshire
• Cover B: Ultra Magnus, by Red Powell
• Retailer incentive cover: Heeeeeeeeere's Magnus, by Marcelo Matere and Thomas Deer
• Hasbro Pulse exclusive cover: Magnus attacks, by Casey Coller

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• G.I. Joe #296
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References

External links

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