War and Peace

Countdown to Extinction

• Writer - Brad Mick
• Penciler - Pat Lee
• Inker - Rob Armstrong
• Breakdowns - Edwin Garcia
• Colorist - Espen Grundet Jern
• Colorist - Pat Lee
• Colorist - Alan Wang
• Colorist - Rob Ruffolo
• Colorist - Ramil Sunga
• Colorist - Gary Yeung
• Lettering - Ben Lee

Chapter 5

Summary

  As the situation at Iacon degenerates and Optimus Prime rallies the Autobots together, Ultra Magnus orders Perceptor to tend to the Dinobots' injuries, then goes off to see Shockwave. While Shockwave is organizing the Decepticons against the Autobot uprising, he is completely unaware that Starscream and Soundwave have united to take over the central communication chamber.

  Ultra Magnus confronts shockwave about the chaos in Iacon, but Shockwave stonewalls him. As Magnus leaves, vowing to learn the truth, he is critically shot in the back by Shockwave... and the scene is instantly transmitted to every video display on Cybertron, signifying the end of the Autobot-Decepticon alliance.

  Stunned by his brother's fall, Optimus Prime barrages through the Decepticon ranks to reach Shockwave's throneroom. Guided by Ultra Magnus' dying words, Optimus Prime follows Shockwave to a hidden chamber, inscribed with a unified Transformers sigil and messages in an unknown language. He steps inside to a chamber full of brilliant light, and is immediately attacked by Shockwave. Prime fights back but is quickly overwhelmed, and Shockwave easily takes the Matrix from him. Shockwave then uses the Matrix to activate Vector Sigma, the ancient supercomputer, and begins to mine it for all of its secrets.

  Outside, the battle between the Autobots and Decepticons is suddenly interrupted by a blinding burst of light that bursts out of Shockwave's throneroom and blankets the entire planet. As Starscream makes plans to leave Cybertron and the corpse of Ultra Magnus stirs, no one notices the energy blast, arcing off into deep space, where it stirs the dormant form of Unicron...