The Five Faces of Darkness, part 4

Despite the biggest onslaught of Decepticons the Autobots have ever seen, Rodimus is the only one who fights back for all of five seconds, as the group are still intent on finding that goop force field thing and get themselves off of Goo. And despite having done nothing at all in their fight aside from giving the Quintesson with the Autobots hope that they'll all just kill each other, the Decepticons believe they've got this fight in the bag.
 

The tides are turned with the entrance of Galvatron, who sets out blasting his forces as punishment for not following under his lead, though they soon realise that the only way they'll not get slaughtered by their own leader is by hailing him, getting them all in his good books again. The Stunticons explain that they were commanded to fight the Autobots by "them", the Quintessons, so Galvatron flies over to their ship to "introduce himself".
 

Rodimus takes note that they should've been blasted to pieces by now, but Ultra Magnus explains that disorganisation within large forces can make even the simplest tasks a hassle. The two of them find a dome where the only working device inside is a television, which lets them get in contact with Wreck-Gar and after being informed of their impending demise, the Junkion promises to send them some help.

Meanwhile, Marissa Faireborn approaches Io, where the big red monsters from the previous part are revealed to be crappy tiny things that just flutter around Blurr and Wheelie like bats, losing any potential danger there was. Wheelie gets bogged down with the creatures and throws Blurr the transformation cog while Marissa lands and tells him to get aboard, but the stupid idiot runs back and puts himself in danger to save Wheelie.
 

Marissa, in a foolish attempt to save two unimportant characters, sets out with a jetpack, space suit and matching skirt to blast the creatures dead. Most of the creatures are wiped out and the rest retreat, but they change their focus to Marissa's ship, demolishing it with a number of explosive suicide attacks; all is not lost, though, as they set about working through the rubble to see if the radio still works.

Galvatron blows a few holes in the Quintesson ship and threatens to do the same with the faces of it's occupants unless they get out of his sight, though upon seeing what a violent individual the Decepticon leader is, realise that they need to win him over via different means, and whisper something about a Decepticon Matrix of Leadership among themselves. This riles Galvatron up, naturally, but the five-faced fools refuse to tell him it's location unless he destroys the Autobots for good.

And his first attempt at this task is firing at Rodimus and Ultra Magnus, prompting the others to fire back, but the fight doesn't last long before a Junkion ship arrives and sucks them all through the planet and inside, though the Quintesson is spat out into the fist of a violent Galvatron.

The emperor of destruction isn't quick enough to make it through the hole made by the suction ray, so vents his anger by blowing up the stability domes of the planet and then the flailing unsupported remains, seeing the ship take off before he can catch it. He complains about this to the Quintessons, demanding to know why they haven't destroyed the Autobots themselves, while the Quintessons explain that the Autobots' relations with humans makes them unpredictable. Galvatron finds this hilarious.

Over on the planet of junk, Wreck-Gar gets Springer good as new by simply pressing a button and have him drop out of the sucked-up garbage ship from Goo, much to Arcee's delight. Rodimus is a little less enthusiastic, as he's busy thinking about the Quintessons and believes more answers to them lie within the Matrix. Springer gags that all he needs to do is get blasted badly and enter it again, and then walks off with Arcee claiming he won't do anything rash.

Forcing a near-death experience upon yourself is so much easier when you're a robot.
 

Short-circuiting himself, Rodimus lands himself in another trip inside the Matrix, though it involves a bit more than faces exploding this time. One of the oldest Matrix bearers appears to guide him through the earliest ages of Cybertron where it was merely a factory for robots, of the consumer goods and war machines varieties, which eventually became the Autobots and Decepticons.
 

These were then provided with intelligence to manufacture themselves, but this only gave the Quintessons more reason to lounge about like frat boys and melt down some of these workers to keep the others on their toes, while also pitting them against each other in gladiator combat. However, some attempted to rebel, only to get a face full of laser.

However, the minority that rebelled eventually provoked the majority to follow suit, their intelligence supplying them with emotions and knowing slavery when they saw it, chasing the Quintessons off the planet. This allowed the consumer goods to enjoy a life of arts, sports and culture, while the war machines just lived up to their purpose and began an old-fashioned war with their opposites.

The consumer goods mastered the art of stealth to combat their opponents' pure military prowess, which in turn was also transforming into cars to knock them off cliffs and so on. The war machines followed suit, so they were now evenly matched and kept the war rolling for even longer, while they also built Megatron deep below the city.

The Matrix of Leadership was passed onto Alpha Trion, who kept it safely for a new leader to arise, Orion Pax, later to be rebuilt as Optimus Prime, which started the third Cybertronian war which is still continuing to this day. And now, the Quintessons have returned to reclaim their home from their rebellious creations and recall them from existence in the process.

Rodimus awakes to have Springer screaming in his face at what a doofus he is, while the Autobot leader explains that with his newfound knowledge, he's fully aware of what danger Cybertron is in, and they head back there. Meanwhile, Galvatron and a Quintesson forge a plan to attack both Cybertron and Earth, while the Constructicons work on an Earth city secretly during the night, finishing it and hitting a switch...

That causes it to shake and rumble, sending the entire population fleeing in terror, as the buildings split and bond, eventually forming the Decepticon city, Trypticon!

Meanwhile, a ship of escaping humans requests permission to land on Cybertron; Perceptor is dubious and denies them, but Kup allows them to, refusing to let a ship full of innocent humans die. It enters the atmosphere of the planet but does not land, instead crashing into Cybertron's central power facility, draining the planet of all power and the Quintessons revealing it was a decoy ship, giving the Decepticons the perfect opportunity to strike!

The history of Cybertron contradicts some earlier statements, naturally because Flint Dille's mythos wasn't planned from that early on. Transformation is introduced for the purpose of stealth, which ultimately was never actually used that much in the cartoon, while in More Than Meets The Eye, part 2, Trailbreaker claims it's for disguise and "it sure beats walking!"

Even though the six minute flashback covers previous Autobot leaders, their creation and all that hoo haa, it completely fails to explain how and where the Matrix of Leadership came to be, and what Alpha Trion does aside from holding onto it until someone can take it for more than three seconds without dying. And the Matrix is super huge when Alpha holds it.

Additionally, eight Constructicons are shown creating Megatron, even though their two back stories both had them being made after the emperor of destruction, and in both cases being turned to the Decepticon cause by him.

And speaking of eight Constructicons...

Two green and purple Shockwaves are among Galvatron's forces in the Quintesson ship. I won't bother pretending there's an obvious explanation.

Wreck-Gar has two Junkion companions with him on his ship...

But they look nothing like traditional Junkions, aside from the white and cyan one having elbow wheels. Junkions generally have the same colour scheme as Wreck-Gar and share his general motif, but these guys are probably just bums or something.

And to end on an insignificant note, the Aerialbots are nowhere to be seen on Goo, but in their place is Slag, a Dinobot who's made no appearance at all in the story arc so far; Springer, who's meant to be in pieces inside the garbage machine, and an unidentifiable blue guy next to Kup. And all but the front two Decepticons in the third image are coloured like Autobots. Crazy!