Wheeljack’s Lab: Dai Atlas and the World of Zone!

One of my favorite Transformers characters and one of the last of the Generation One continuity. For years very few knew of him or even cared, then images of him appeared thanks to Dreamwave and then IDW gave him some love. Their have been some PVC and an Alternity toy of Dai Atlas among other little nick knacks with his likeness here and there. However there has not been a TRUE Dai Atlas toy since 1990. I think he is a great character and needs a new figure. While what homage IDW has shown Dai Atlas is great, lets take a look at not only the current character but the Dai Atlas of 1990 and his friends and world of Zone. Join in the Discussion here!

NOTE: Let me start off by giving honorable mention to Transformers Wiki (tfwiki.net) where I gathered general information on Dai Atlas. On a more epic scale, I would like to thank the owner of ALLSPARK.COM, GREG KUHN and two of its staff, HYDRA and MIGHT GAINE. Without them and the rest of the staff at http://www.allspark.com I would not have been able to access and gather information regarding Transformers Zone as seen in TV Magazine in 1990 without the hard work and effort they put into gathering this information, and translating it for viewing by Transformers fans all over the world wide web. To see all the TF Pulp translations be sure and visit this link… http://www.allspark.com/tag/tf-pulp/

Dai Atlas succeeded Star Saber as Supreme Commander of the Autobot forces. A skilled swordsman, his prowess with a blade is considered almost equal to that of his predecessor. Dai Atlas has sworn to defeat the forces of the new Decepticon Emperor of Destruction, Violen Jiger, and protect the Zodiac at all costs.

Dai Atlas is a Powered Master who can combine with his partners. When combined with Sonic Bomber, they become Sky Powered. When combined with Roadfire, they become Land Powered. And finally, when combined with Sonic Bomber and Roadfire, the three form the massive Big Powered. His son Speeder accompanies him in battle as his Micromaster partner.

ZONE CARTOON – Dai Atlas, along with his fellow Powered Masters, created the technological planet Zone which eventually developed the super energy source, Energon Z. After the Nine Great Demon Generals attacked and destroyed the planet Feminia, and the Supreme Commander Victory Saber was lost in the explosion, Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber left to search for their leader.
The pair eventually found the injured Autobot and returned him to Zone for repairs. On Zone they received word that they were needed elsewhere, so they left for Earth, to counter an attack from the Demon Generals. Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber arrived just in the nick of time (because… y’know, heroes always do), saving the Autobot Micromasters from the all-powerful Decepticons. Dai Atlas then raced Devastator to the underground location of the Zodiac, an energy source capable of creating an entire universe.

Devastator beat Dai Atlas to the punch thanks to the intervention of King Poseidon, who caught the Autobot leader with a chain weapon. Devastator handed the Zodiac to Poseidon and took the chain from him, intending to kill Atlas. But Dai Atlas drove forwards using the treads in his feet and then transformed into his drill form and smashed through into a wall, killing Devastator in a flood of hot lava.

Free now, he chased King Poseidon to the surface, where he wrestled the Zodiac away from him. However, Trypticon got pissed off and unleashed his Energon Z Beam, which Sonic Bomber threw himself in front of to protect Dai Atlas, nearly getting himself killed by the attack. Taking a risk, Dai Atlas unleashed the power of the Zodiac, and both he and Sonic Bomber (now healed from Trypticon’s attack) transformed into their base modes and blasted Trypticon and King Poseidon into oblivion.
Predaking saw this and decided it was time to get the hell out of there. Dai Atlas pursued, riding on Sonic Bomber. He merged his wings into his Z sword and sliced Predaking neatly in half. After returning to Zone with the Zodiac, Victory Saber inaugurated Dai Atlas as the new Autobot Supreme Commander.

ZONE MANGA AND STORY PAGES – Following the upgrade of planet Micro into the Autobot Zone, rumors abounded that not Victory Saber, but a new Supreme Commander would be in command. Later, Violen Jiger ordered his Nine Great Demon Generals on a campaign to conquer planets and create a Decepticon Zone to counter the Autobot Zone. The Decepticons attacked planet Feminia and destroyed it completely, with Victory Saber lost in the destruction. However, Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber, the Powered Master space explorers, had arrived in time to rescue the badly wounded Autobot Supreme Commander. The Decepticons then shifted their focus to Earth, where they hoped to obtain a powerful energy source called the Zodiac. Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber intercepted them on Earth, defeated them, and regained the Zodiac. Impressed with Dai Atlas’ courage and power, and too injured to lead any longer, Victory Saber inaugurated Dai Atlas as the new Supreme Commander of the Autobots.

Dai Atlas helped to complete the Zone Operation, leaving Victory Saber relieved he had passed the role of Supreme Commander on to him. Dai Atlas’s mere presence enhanced the Autobots’ morale by a tremendous degree and they enforced the peace of the galaxy with an even greater resolve. Soon after, Evil Spirit General BlackZarak attacked the Earth and took Landshaker and Sky Hyper hostage. Driven by the need to rescue their comrades, Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber defeated BlackZarak and rescued their friends. Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber then focused their attention on Super-God General Overlord and Saurian General Trypticon, whom they vowed to defeat in under eight seconds. Dai Atlas took on Overlord, the strongest of the Generals, and defeated him with his “Galactic Dash” attack.

Violen Jiger then created Metrotitan as a rival for Dai Atlas and unleashed him on the Lunar Zone Base on the Moon. Dai Atlas heard the SOS and rushed to aid Sonic Bomber in battle. Dai Atlas arrived and combined with Sonic Bomber into Sky Powered, but they were quickly frozen solid by Metrotitan’s Freeze Beam Gun. All hope seemed lost until Roadfire appeared and took Metrotitan out. Freed, Dai Atlas and Sonic Bomber happily welcomed Roadfire into the club. Violen Jiger at last came out of the shadows and attacked the Earth in person. Dai Atlas and the other Powered Masters attempted to stop him with their “Triple Powered Attack” but failed. Violen Jiger escaped back to the Tenth Planet with the Zodiac and a Galaxy Rocket full of hostages. Dai Atlas and the Powered Masters then combined into Big Powered and gave chase.

Arriving at the Tenth Planet, Violen Jiger split into his three forms, Vion, Lenja and Igern, and attacked. Dai Atlas destroyed Vion with his Powered Cutters while Sonic Bomber and Roadfire took out the other two. However, the battle was not over. Violen Jiger returned as a horrible phoenix-thing and attacked. Upgraded with the power of the Zodiac, the Powered Masters combined into Big Powered yet again, but this time their strength was enhanced thirty-fold. They flew through Violen Jiger and destroyed him with the “Powered Rainbow Attack”. The Zodiac then reformed the desolate Tenth Planet into a lush utopia where humans and robots could live in harmony.

THE BATTLESTARS – To counter the threat of Dark Nova, Dai Atlas charged the Battlestars with the task of resurrecting Optimus Prime. Giving the Zodiac to their leader, Sky Garry, Dai Atlas inaugurated the youthful Autobot as temporary Supreme Commander, at least until Optimus Prime was brought back online.

DREAMWAVE GENERATION ONE CONTINUITY – Dai Atlas was an ancient Transformer from Cybertron’s lost past. While searching for clues about Cybertron’s history, Megatron stumbled across a hidden chamber beneath the planet’s surface containing two massive statues of Deathsaurus and Dai Atlas, holding a golden disk between them. This chamber apparently told of a vast Cybertronian Empire that ended prior to recorded history.

IDW GENERATION ONE CONTINUITY – Dai Atlas was one of the old Cybertronians dating back to the era of Nova Prime 8 million years ago. In Old Cybertronian his name was “Dei Atlas”, meaning “God Map”, which reflected his desire to find the legendary Knights of Cybertron, a group of Cybertronians who supposedly made Cybertron perfect before leaving to spread enlightenment and peace to the rest of the universe.

A strict believer in pacifism and in Primus, Dai Atlas was part of Nova Prime’s inner circle and was present when he located the legendary Crystal City and its guardian, Omega Supreme, allowing him to bring about a new era of peace on Cybertron. With time, an increasingly ambitious Nova began planning for aggressive expansion into space to “free” other races from “the tyranny of will” as well as authorizing combiner experiments in the name of all becoming one, both of which horrified Dai Atlas. When Crystal City was destroyed in a battle between Omega Supreme and Jhiaxus’s creation, Monstructor, he confronted Prime with the consequences, but was rebuffed and told he had lost his place on the Ark. Omega then approached Atlas to show him something he hadn’t trusted Nova with: the location of one of the last Metrotitans remaining on Cybertron. Atlas was told that someday he would have to leave Cybertron “to keep the light of the Guiding Hand burning in its endless circle”, and the Metrotitan’s energies would aid him in this endeavor.

Following the departure and subsequent disappearance of the Ark, Dai Atlas became a senator in the new government that formed on Cybertron under the new Prime, Nominus. Although initially wary of his colleague Shockwave, on the grounds of his apprenticeship to the amoral Jhiaxus, the two came to develop a friendship around their shared dislike of the prominent senator Proteus’s functionism. Shockwave confided in Dai Atlas with his worries that Cybertron would face a critical resource shortage thanks to the planet’s development into a metropolis, and the two would both champion the cause together.

Eventually, Shockwave’s continued dissidence against Proteus and the rest of the Senate would lead to him being subjected to the empurata ritual and a mnemosurgical “personality inversion”, turning him into a coldly logical person who accused Atlas of lying about the resource crisis so as to allow his own experiments into the matter to continue unfettered. Concerned, Dai Atlas asked another former friend of Shockwave, the upstart police officer Orion Pax, to try and contact the other senator and talk sense into him.
This effort failed, and before long Dai Atlas, along with the rest of the Senate, was summoned to an emergency meeting in Kaon regarding the burgeoning Decepticon movement. Before he could leave, however, Shockwave visited him at his home. Unbeknownst to Atlas, Shockwave had been recruited by the Decepticons and was aware that the Senate would be massacred at the meeting. Through some vestige of sentimentality, Shockwave attacked his former friend to ensure he did not travel to Kaon, sparing him the fate of the rest of the Senate.

Rather than join the “new Senate” assembled under the ascendant Zeta Prime, Dai Atlas went on to form a group dedicated to preserving Cybertron’s ancient culture, naming it the Circle of Light after Omega Supreme’s prediction. The Decepticons, now holding Kaon, continued their campaign of terror, but were halted temporarily after Zeta’s death and the Matrix of Leadership’s selection of Orion Pax to become Optimus Prime. In spite of the new Prime’s successes, Atlas considered him a warmonger and refused to accept his authority. Even though he had no faith that Prime could lead Cybertron back to peace, he grudgingly participated in the Grand Convocation out of respect for the Matrix.

When he refused to let Prime use his Circle of Light as recruiters for the Autobot army, Prime warned him that pacifism would only mark him as a target for the Decepticons. In response, Atlas proved himself to be neither pacifistic nor weak by destroying a group of auto-combatants, explaining that while he didn’t believe in violence, he was primarily a patriot, not a pacifist. Faces of Darkness
When Optimus Prime responded to a Decepticon attack on the Toraxxis mega-refinery, Dai Atlas came with him as an observing non-combatant and ended up witnessing his arrest of Grimlock. He suggested that they hear Grimlock out and give him and his Dynobots safe passage off Cybertron like they wanted, but Prime refused, causing the situation to escalate. Although Grimlock was eventually talked down, Scorponok, current leader of the Decepticons, triggered the detonation of the refinery, Rage causing widespread devastation and compounding the energon crisis. After hearing Prime vow to restore unity to the planet at the memorial service for the disaster, Dai Atlas attempted to convince Optimus that that Cybertron was a lost cause and that seeking new energy reserves on other worlds was the best option. The Autobot leader instead reaffirmed his decision to continue to fight for Cybertron. Nevertheless, many citizens began an exodus off-world, and Dai Atlas was later interviewed by Blaster on his news broadcast, where he expressed his lack of belief in the Prime. Fallout During the exodus, he worked with Tyrest to help millions of civilians leave the planet.

While the Autobots did locate a new energon resource, Dai Atlas rejected the possibility that it could save Cybertron. He was present when Optimus Prime personally told the evacuees that they were free to go, but while he gave Prime praise for this act, it did not change his decision to leave. As he boarded a ship off-world, Atlas turned down Prime’s last offer to stay, causing the two to trade insults before separating on bad terms. Massacre After fleeing their homeworld, Dai Atlas and his Circle of Light moved further and further away as the war spread before Cybertron. Eventually, they formed a new Crystal City deep underground on Theophany, a utopian society hidden from all other Transformers. As per Omega Supreme’s instruction, Atlas brought the Metrotitan with him, building Crystal City on top of it and using it as the city’s power source.

Dai Atlas’s utopia was threatened by its first serpent when an idealistic swordsman named Wing broke their laws and brought a Decepticon into their midst after an encounter with Slavers on the planet’s surface. Although Dai Atlas and Axe condemned Wing for this mistake, he insisted Drift would not be trouble. This proved to be false weeks later when Drift stormed into the meeting chambers and announced he had made a deal with the Slavers to sell them out for his own freedom. But, um…he didn’t mean it! He hoped to stall long enough to arm the Knights of the Circle with knowledge in advance of the Slaver’s attack, and catch them off-guard. Dai Atlas was furious at Drift for forcing them into a position where they’d have to fight to protect their peace, the very thing they had long criticized the Autobots for doing. When other Knights seemed prepared to listen to Drift, he refused to allow them access to the weapons vault, willing to do anything he could to ensure the Crystal City remained secret and at peace. Dai Atlas ultimately relented, but refused to have any part in the battle. As the oldest of the Knights, he had seen his share of warfare, and dreaded seeing it again.

Safe inside Crystal City, Dai Atlas wrestled with his decision as he watched his friends and comrades battle from afar. The death of Wing at the hands of the lead Slaver was too much for him to bear, and it rekindled his fighting spirit. Dai Atlas raised Crystal City from beneath the sands and led the full compliment of Cybertronians into battle against their foes. The tide of battle turned quickly with these reinforcements, and the citizens of Crystal City soon stood triumphant. Dai Atlas declared that the Circle of Light would no longer hide in secret, and that the Knights would go forth and allow their message to be heard. He named Drift the latest of the Knights and passed on Wing’s great sword to him.

Dai Atlas’s certain belief in the Knights of Cybertron was one of the reasons Drift used to try and convince others to join him and Rodimus on a quest to find them. Optimus Prime and Prowl remained unconvinced, with Optimus describing Dai Atlas and his Circle of Light as a cult.

Meanwhile Crystal City was attacked by an army of Legislators, led by Star Saber, who had betrayed the Circle and now worked under Chief Justice Tyrest. Although it cost 10,000 Legislators to subdue the population, eventually Dai Atlas and the survivors were captured and taken to the fabled miracle moon of Luna 1. The Lost Light would later find only the city in ruins.

For the Circle, Luna 1 became a prison slaughterhouse, and they would lose 90% of their population before their accidental discovery by Whirl and Cyclonus. Once freed, Dai Atlas joined the pair as they faced off an army of Legislators sent by Tyrest to quell the breakout. While the battle raged, Dai Atlas noticed that, just like his own, Cyclonus’ Great Sword was glowing with light, his devout spark igniting the nexus in the sword’s hilt and turning it super-charged.

He would not have the time or chance to explore the notion of having a fellow ‘bot with a similar talent, for Star Saber teleported himself close to the battle. His appearance prompted Dai Atlas to abandon the battle and confront him, denouncing Star Saber for his betrayal and fanaticism. Star Saber countered with nothing but criticism for Atlas, calling him a heretic and unbeliever, and that his faith in Primus was only an affectation. Star Saber also accused Dai Atlas of waiting arrogantly around at Crystal City for the Knights of Cybertron to show up instead of taking action. Moments later, Star Saber shoved his fist into Dai Atlas’s chest, killing him with the final words, “Primus hates you”.