Enemy of My Enemy Part Four

« Transformers vs. The Terminator #4
So when he's going to meet the Joker next?
"Enemy of My Enemy Part Four"
Publisher	IDW Publishing and Dark Horse Comics
First published	September 30, 2020
Cover date	September 2020
Story by	David Mariotte, Tom Waltz and John Barber
Written by	David Mariotte and John Barber
Art by	Alex Milne
Colors by	David García Cruz
Letters by	Jake M. Wood
Editor	Tom Waltz and Riley Farmer

The future hangs in the balance as Optimus Prime and Megatron face off in final battle—but will Earth's inheritors be human, machine, or Cybertronian?

Synopsis

Starscream's made an offer he's sure the T-800 can't turn down: since his robotic foe hails from the future, he gloats that the timeline now hangs on whether or not he executes the Cyberdyne Systems employees he's holding hostage—and he will spare the humans, but only if the Terminator returns the favor by helping him to depose Megatron. But what Starscream doesn't realize is that the Terminator has already seen through his ploy by analyzing the captives, deducing that none of them are crucial to Skynet's creation, and feigning surrender; unaware of the deceit, Starscream lays out his plan...

Sarah Connor takes cover inside Cyberdyne's parking booth, where she uses the two-way radio to try and contact the Ark for reinforcements. She gets no answer, however, and the situation gets worse when Ravage locks on to her position. Surrounded on all sides by the Decepticons shortly after Arcee slays Kickback, it seems like the end for the trio of her, Bumblebee, and Velocity... until Soundwave detects Sarah's transmission and breaks off from the fight to investigate. He deduces that she cannot reach the Ark, but before he can inform Megatron that there are no Autobot reinforcements on the way, Starscream swoops overhead and blasts him through the torso! As Megatron duels Optimus Prime, Starscream swoops in over the pair and ejects the Terminator from his cockpit. This living missile streaks right towards Megatron, but even his heavy-duty weapons only dent the Decepticon leader's thick armor. Tired of the irritating little robot, Megatron contemptuously hurls his attacker back into the sky, and his impact against Starscream's cockpit sends the Air Commander crashing to the ground. The interruption gives Prime the opening he needs to cleave his energon-axe straight into Megatron's chest, but in spite of this grievous injury, the Decepticon leader still refuses to surrender.

As Ravage witnesses Starscream's betrayal and Soundwave's near-destruction, he finds himself torn away from his mission to stop Sarah and help Soundwave... and that gives the once-meek human the opportunity to grab a handgun and wrestle the feline Decepticon long enough to shove the gun into his mouth and shoot him through the head. Arcee takes out Skywarp and Thundercracker while Velocity and Bumblebee incapacitate Bombshell and Skrapnel. Sarah tries to pull the badly damaged Terminator out from underneath Starscream, but only retrieves the top half of his body from the wreckage. Starscream has survived the crash, however; as he transforms and prepares to kill the android for his failure, a blast from a furious Soundwave prompts him to make a cowardly retreat. Sparking and leaking, the dying Soundwave accuses the pair of having destroyed the Decepticons... but his words only encourage the pair to join forces and blast him with small-arms fire until he finally collapses.

By the time Bumblebee arrives, Sarah tells him that she couldn't raise Wheeljack, and suspects that nobody's coming to help them. Without legs, the Terminator can't complete his mission; he informs Bumblebee that he needs Bumblebee's help. On his instructions, the yellow Autobot tosses the Terminator to Velocity, who hurls him to Arcee... and as Arcee tosses the T-800 at Megatron, the smaller robot flies right into Megatron's chest wound and blasts his spark! The surge of energy annihilates the Terminator on the spot and rips Megatron apart from the inside; as he dies, Megatron spits defiance at his old friend, who bids him a weary goodbye before turning his attention to their four Decepticon captives. As the Autobots load their prisoners into Optimus's trailer and prepare to return to the Ark, Bumblebee asks Sarah if she'd like to join them as an honorary Autobot. Sarah declines; she'll do what she can to help the human survivors and keep the police off their trail. They'll keep in touch, Sarah promises, and she'll do her best to keep an eye on her alien friends.

Once Optimus and the Autobots arrive at the molten remains of Mount St. Hilary, however, everything becomes clear—the Terminator had always intended to double-cross the Transformers, and his betrayal has left them stranded on Earth without reinforcements or a way home. Velocity can't process the loss, but Optimus urges them to let the past lie and try and find a new way forward. With Megatron gone, Autobots and Decepticons should lay down their arms and live on Earth in secret until they can find a way to return to Cybertron; both sides agree, and as Prime stares out at the lake of molten magma, he briefly eulogizes the Terminator as best he could: in death, he completed his mission and ended the Cybertronian war.

Time passes, and Sarah eventually gets a job at the Skywatch corporation, where she uses her new connections to keep an eye on the Transformers in hiding. It seems a happy ending, and perhaps it might be... if not for Skywatch's new top-secret project. In Skynet's secret Alpha Base, scientists dissect, study, and reverse-engineer Megatron's lifeless remains to create a computerized defense network. Armies of robotic tanks and airborne drones take shape. Legions of skeletal Terminator androids stand ready. Skynet activates... and Megatron lives again.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"We got this, right, Bee? You and I each take an Insecticon and Arcee takes the other two?"
"I dunno, Lotty. Mebbe if we didn't have Soundwave coming up on our rear, too."
"Oh... then we're doomed, huh?"
"Mmm... yep."

—Velocity and Bumblebee

"I don't fear you. I don't fear your Autobots or the meatbags or the children's toys or Starscream. FOR I AM FEAR ITSELF!"

—Megatron

"Guess you always land on your feet, huh? Time for your permanent catnap."

—Sarah Connor versus Ravage

"This was supposed to be your death, Prime. Your death..."

—Megatron's last words

"No use wondering if I ever got through to the Terminator. His mission was accomplished and from that, he is free. I can only hope that was enough."

—Optimus Prime

Notes

Continuity notes

• As he pretends to accept Starscream's offer, the Terminator remembers the battle against the 2029 Decepticons from issue #1, including the exchange where Starscream calls the Terminators "slave-bots".
• Sarah describes her fight against Ravage as "round two", having previously tangled with the Decepticon aboard the Ark in issue #2.
• Skywatch appears in the final page; although issue #2 depicted it as a purely anti-Cybertronian military operation formed in response to the Cybertronian invasion of Earth, in this new timeline it seems to be a more generalized research and development firm, since the invasion never occurred. That's not to say that this new version Skywatch doesn't have some connections to the Transformers, however...
• ...because the final scene of the comic is set in the same secret bunker underneath the Big Jeff's restaurant that appeared in issue #1, which now hosts a new version of Skynet reverse-engineered from Megatron's remains. Here, however, it's called "Alpha Base" instead of that comic's "Omega". Much like Omega Base, it features regular Terminator robots, HK tanks and jets, and a new version of the giant T-8000 units, but since these models are directly reverse-engineered from Megatron's remains, they sport his famous bucket helmet instead.

Transformers references

• Bumblebee calls Velocity "Lotty", the nickname she frequently went by in More than Meets the Eye.
• The duel between Optimus Prime and Megatron involves Optimus injuring Megatron with his energon axe and preparing to put him down with it, only for an injured and fallen Megatron to retaliate with a two-handed haymaker uppercut - a reversed homage to their famous duel in The Transformers: The Movie, in which Megatron injured Optimus with a laser sword and Optimus delivered the uppercut. Somewhat tellingly, Megatron dies shortly after making said move, just like Optimus did in the film.
• The Cybertronians ratify their truce by solemnly chanting "Till all are one", in what's probably a reference to the ending of The Transformers: The Movie, where the victorious Autobots marked the apparent end of the Great War by repeating the phrase.

Terminator references

• The Terminator loses his legs when he and Starscream crash; in the original film, he had his legs blown off by Kyle Reese during the final showdown only to continue chasing Sarah Connor as a legless torso.
• The loading bay on the side of Cyberdyne System features signage that reads "T2" and "T3", the generally-accepted fan acronyms for the second and third films in the series.
• The final scene of the miniseries, featuring a new version of Skynet poised and ready to unleash itself upon humanity, appears to tie into a theme from the Terminator films in its third installation and onwards: the eventual extinction of mankind cannot be stopped, only delayed. Whether it's extensive time-travel manipulation, an entirely new AI taking Skynet's place, or—as seen here—an alien intelligence hijacking the network, the machines will rise...
  • Of course, it also ties into the revelation of Terminator 2: Judgement Day; that the Terminator sent back to kill Sarah Connor was responsible for Skynet's creation, its remains having been found by Cyberdyne.

Real-life references

• The calendar inside the Cyberdyne parking booth on page three features a depiction of USS Enterprise battling USS Reliant from the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Other trivia

• Originally solicited for a June 24th release, this issue was pushed back to September 16th as a result of IDW Publishing suspending operations, then slipped to the 30th as a result of regular production delays.

Covers (3)

• Cover A: Sarah, the Terminator, and Megatron, by Gavin Fullerton
• Cover B: Optimus Prime and the Terminator, by Billie Montfort
• Retailer incentive cover: Optimus merged with the Terminator's skull, by Freddie E. Williams II and Jeremy Colwell

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External links

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