Unicron is the ultimate threat who seeks to end all reality. Originally created by an extradimensional being known as "The One" to explore the universe at the beginning of time, Unicron would go on a rampage, spreading chaos and destruction throughout the cosmos. When his twin brother Primus was created to protect the multiverse from annihilation, Unicron would make many attempts to kill him. During one of their battles, Primus defeated Unicron by sealing him away in a black hole. Eventually awakened by Shockwave, Unicron set his sights to destroy the Earth while also devouring countless other worlds in his path to get there.
The War Within: Megatronus Prime, debuting here, is known as the Fallen. Created by Primus as one of the original Thirteen Primes, the Fallen became obsessed with the notions of entropy and decay, ultimately attempting to murder his creator after betraying him to Unicron. Escaping the prison he was trapped in some seven million years before the 21st century, The Fallen visited the G1 continuity, gathered several Decepticon outcasts and kidnapped four Transformers, through which he tried to channel enough energy to break the Seal of Primus, awaken Unicron, and end all reality, boasting that his victims were but "casualties in the wars of the Gods". Sharing his master's unquenchable thirst for destruction, The Fallen is precisely the kind of servant that Unicron most needs.
Prime Directive: General Robert Hallo was the head of military development for the United States Army. Obsessed with the idea of controlling the Transformers, Hallo had Adam Rook create a program that could remove the free will from Transformers, and hatched a plan to blow up the Ark II and gain a new robot army. After killing a man who attempted to blow the whistle on the plan, Hallo successfully destroyed the Ark II, killing all the humans on board and sending the Autobots and captured Decepticons into the Arctic Ocean. However, Adam decided to keep the program for himself, and disappeared not long after. Years later, Hallo convinced Spike Witwicky to revive Optimus Prime, but when Optimus refused to follow Hallo's orders, both Autobots and the Decepticons hit with an air strike, intending to kill them all, which failed and led to an enraged group of Decepticons rampaging through San Francisco. To be rid of the Transformers once and for all, Hallo ordered the city to be nuked, and when Spike burst in to stop him, Hallo holds him at gunpoint and forces him to watch as the city and Transformers are destroyed.
Condemned by History: The series went through this hard. When it was first released in 2002, it sold millions of copies, with the original miniseries cracking the top ten in sales charts. However, criticisms of the series mounted over time with regards to the tone, plotting, and art style, and once word broke out of Pat Lee's criminal behavior, public opinion of the series flipped completely into hatred. Since then, aside from War Within, the series has pretty much vanished from the eyes of both the fandom and Hasbro (outside of the occasional Sunstorm toy), as well as the idea of giving the Autobots and Decepticons Cybertronian modes instead of just a few and the Fallen and many of the writers and artists who got their start there seem to regard it as an Old Shame. Even stylistically resembling the Dreamwave comics is enough to get alarm bells going in some circles. The comic itself was Left Hanging, and the creators outright admitted that because they weren't paid for the parts that were already completed, they have no interest in giving the Dreamwave run a proper ending, only further killing interest in the comics.
Ensemble Dark Horse: This series portrayal of Sunstorm was beloved and has become the definitive depiction of the character with the exception of Transformers: Animated where he's a clone of Starscream representing his sycophantic side.
Growing the Beard: The second miniseries. The first one, despite some genuinely good moments, was mostly a Darker and Edgier version of the basic plots. The second added a lot more nuance to Cybertronian politics, interactions between pre and post movie characters like Ironhide and Kup, and was more tightly plotted.
Iron Woobie: Optimus Prime. It's clear that the distrust sown through the Transformers presence weighs heavily on him, yet he keeps fighting because it's the right thing to do.
Moment of Awesome: Optimus Prime's Patrick Stewart Speech in the first miniseries and the fire department of the city then proving him correct by slamming their fire engines into the Decepticons, buying Optimus precious time. Awesome.
Overshadowed by Controversy: Dreamwave is remembered far more for its shady business practices (not paying numerous employees being one of the most known claims) and controversial bankruptcy than for any of the stories it told. The stories themselves fell into disdain with many future series, IDW in particular, outshining them easily and much more attention is paid to the infamous art flaws than any of the positives.
