Transformers: Unicron

The sequel to Transformers vs. Visionaries, Transformers: Unicron serves as the Grand Finale for IDW's Hasbro Comic Universe.

Tropes used in Transformers: Unicron include:

• Adaptational Badass: Unicron. Despite Doing in the Wizard, he destroys Cybertron and his mere existence causes fundamental structural damage to the galaxy.
• Alas, Poor Villain: What drives on Unicron's creator? The memory of his daughter who died in Cybertron's invasion of Antilla. He can't even die as his hatred keeps him alive in infraspace. Unicron only dies when Optimus makes peace with the creator's soul, finally convincing him to let go of his hate.
• All There in the Manual: The finale reveals some missing information about Shockwave's Regenesis Ores and the Titans who settled on the planets.
• Arc Number: Thirteen.
• Anyone Can Die: Anyone. Wheeljack, Cliffjumper, Elita One, the Mistress of Flame, Ironhide, Trypticon, Omega Supreme, Dirge, Starscream, Soundwave, and even Optimus Prime himself.
• Back for the Finale: Everyone (bar the Lost Light crew) shows up.
• Backup From Otherworld: Soundwave manages to use the Enigma of Combination to tap into the Afterspark and psychically link Optimus to the spirits of the dead.
• Bigger Bad:
  • Shockwave. His Regenesis Ores act as beacons for Unicron. Huge surprise right?
  • Merklynn. His activation of the Talisman is what woke Unicron up in the first place.
  • It's revealed that Unicron's birth was what destroyed Prysmos and created the Dire Wraiths in the first place.
• Body Horror: Anyone luckless enough to have been on a planet's surface when Unicron ate it becomes mushed into a horrific antibody.
• Book Ends: When the Great War ended, Optimus Prime metaphorically died and resumed his identity as "Orion Pax". He actually dies here after shedding all his masks and declaring he's just Orion Pax.
• Broken Pedestal: The Maximals turned against "Onyx Prime" once they realized everything he preached was a big, fat, lie.
• Cannibalism Superpower: For every world he consumes, Unicron gains the power infused into it via Shockwave's Regenesis Ores.
• Character Title: Well guess who.
• Cool Starship: Starscream has Bludgeon assemble all the missing Decepticon cells who come with a whole slew of planet destroying capital ships. They don't do much against Unicron.
• Create Your Own Villain: Issue 3 reveals Unicron was forged from the planet Antilla, the very first planet attacked by Cybertronians, as a weapon of ultimate retribution for Onyx Prime and Megatronus's invasion.
• The Dog Bites Back: Unicron is essentially this for Antilla, the first alien planet to be messed up by the Cybertronian. His robot mode is essentially a gigantic Antillan.
• Dramatic Irony: Issue 2 reveals it was the Talisman's initial activation that destroyed Prysmos, not Merklynn cocking up his spell. Becomes some rather delicious Irony that Merklynn then spent 70 or so years all but worshipping the device that destroyed his home.
• Eleventh-Hour Ranger: Rom fights right alongside the main cast of Transformers.
• Evil Makes You Ugly: Owing to his absorption of Ore-11, anyone who serves Unicron is mutated into a monstrous Dire Wraith-esque appearance.
• Grand Finale: Of IDW's Transformers comics and the whole Hasbro Comic Universe.
• He Who Fights Monsters: As Optimus tells Unicron's creator, losing your planet and then going on a killing spree across the galaxy is a very Cybertronian thing to do.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Wheeljack remains behind on Elonia to allow its population to escape meaning he's swallowed up by Unicron.
  • Elita One rams her totalled starship into Unicron (causing him to actually experience pain for the first time) allowing the Cybertronian fleet to escape his wrath.
  • Unable to teleport into Unicron, Starscream activates the Talisman to burn a hole through him, the device ripping the Seeker apart.
  • Optimus himself.
• Horrible Judge of Character: Both Starscream and Shockwave make the incredibly stupid assumption that Bludgeon, whose love of the apocalypse borders on a fetish, will follow them in the face of Unicron.
• Hypocrite: As Arcee bluntly calls Windblade out on. The cityspeaker may love bashing on Cybertronian expansion... but she only exists because of Cybertronian expansion.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: Space Knight armor is derived from the remains of Prima's Titan, Emissary and Shockwave's Ore-12.
• In Medias Res: Issue 0 begins after Unicron has already begun consuming the Cybertronian colonies.
• It's All About Me:
  • The Maximals want so badly to screw over Shockwave for using them that they'll murder swaths of their own kind and help Unicron destroy the galaxy.
  • Unicron's creator. What happened to him was a tragedy yes, but virtually everyone who wronged him is long since dead. Doesn't stop him from risking the galaxy all to get revenge on the Cybertronian race.
• It's All My Fault: Optimus Prime blames Cybertron's "scream" in the coda of First Strike for Unicron waking up.
• Karma Houdini: The Prysmosians keep up their record of this, being sent back in time to prehistoric Prysmos, safe from any harm.
• Killed Off for Real: By issue #0, Unicron has already consumed six planets with the death toll including Cliffjumper and Wheeljack.
• Never My Fault:
  • Shockwave wants to wipe away Cybertron's "tainted past" and start anew under his banner. As most everyone points out, he created the "tainted past" and now wants another go at running the species.
  • It's not Elita's fault for recklessly charging at Unicron, it's everyone else's fault for not sacrificing themselves and screwing up her plan.
  • Joe Colton views Unicron as validation for his invasion of Cybertron... forgetting that said invasion caused Unicron to wake up.
• No Endor Holocaust: Downplayed as most of Unicron's body was swallowed by a black hole. Some Unicron fragments did impact Earth but it's a small percentage of the total mass and the damage was mostly contained.
• No Name Given: We never learn the name of Unicron's creator. He claims it's due to The Fog of Ages. It's probably Primacron.
• Pet the Dog: When Windblade scrambles to enact her plan to save everyone on Cybertron, Starscream backs her on it, outright saying he owes her for putting so much faith in him.
• Plot Hole: There are two.
  • First is that the Antillans were able to build the Talisman (seemingly regarded throughout the whole HCU as the most powerful piece of technology to ever exist) which not only harnessed all the magic of Prysmos from millions of years in the future, it reforged their world into Unicron. Despite that, they couldn't build a gun big enough to just kill Omega Supreme and his fellow Sentinels.
  • When Unicron approaches Earth, he doesn't attack due to detecting the Talisman's presence on the planet... yet attacked Cybertron despite the Talisman being present.
• Ramming Always Works: Averted. Elita One tries to ram Carcer into Unicron in issue 3 but Unicron blasts the ship before the quantum engines can even begin charging. When she actually rams him an issue later, all he does is stumble back.
• Reality Ensues: Why did the Thirteen Primes begin invading other planets? They needed resources to build their empire.
• Sins of Our Fathers: Unicron is, essentially, the Antillans punishing the Cybertronian race for invading their planet... not caring that everyone involved in the crime either regrets it deeply, is dead, or is literally incapable of feeling any emotion. Most of Unicron's victims weren't even born when the invasion happened. Elonia wasn't even inhabited by Transformers.
• Spanner in the Works: The problem with Shockwave's plan. He can't account for anyone who showed up after he was sent back in time. As such, he's caught off-guard by Windblade and Stardrive.
• Stable Time Loop: The people of New Prysmos get sent back in time to prehistoric Prysmos so they can found their society.
• Thirteen Is Unlucky: Inverted. The thirteenth colony, Earth, is the only to survive. The seventh colony, (lucky number seven) was the one that got reforged into Unicron.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The previews for the Free Comic Book Day issue give away that:
  • Optimus Prime, Arcee and Bumblebee survive the Grand Finale of Optimus Prime. The actual issue reveals Soundwave and Pyra Magna also come out alive.
  • Wheeljack survives Transformers vs. Visionaries.
  • Rom survives Rom & The Micronauts.
  • Space Knight armor is derived from the remains of the ancient Titan Emissary which spoiled at least part of Optimus Prime #18. To be fair, pretty much everyone had already worked out that Elonia was connected to Cybertron in some way.
• Unreliable Narrator: Shockwave stated in Optimus Prime #18 that the first Cybertronian astronauts were diplomatic and landed on a violent planet. Arcee (who part of that mission) reveals the Antillans were peaceful as could be before Cybertron invaded. Alpha Trion used the justification that the Antillans fired first to rewrite history.
• The Unreveal:
  • Optimus claims to be the Arisen. Before he can elaborate on it, he jumps into a black hole.
  • We don't learn what the daughter of Unicron's creator was called, even as Optimus encourages the Antillan to think of her.
• We Have Become Complacent: Optimus says as much regarding the Elonians.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Quite a lot of Robots in Disguise/Till All Are One characters are left unaccounted for. It's not a huge stretch to imagine that Unicron killed them.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Though partly justified by Unicron's directive to kill Cybertronians, Earth walks out of the cataclysm largely unharmed.
• The Worf Effect: The Space Knights are some of the most powerful warriors in the galaxy. Unicron hands them their assess.