I have a bit of good news for those of you who were angry that Michael Bay’s Transformers lacked a coherent story. The sequel will have an extensive narrative, all of which takes place off screen in a series of prequel comic books. Of course I’m kidding… or am I? SplashPage’s preview of IDW Publishing’s upcoming five-part Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen comic book miniseries Transformers: Destiny, provides final confirmation that the Fallen in the film’s title is actually the name of the main villain in the sequel (seen above).

Fallen is one of the original thirteen Transformers created by Primus to help him defeat Unicron. According to the Transformers Wiki, Fallen turned against his siblings, his creator, and his universe: “As Vector Prime was constructed to safeguard Space/Time, this robot’s function was to oversee the primal force of entropy, the aging and dissolution of order in this universe as presage to a new creation. However, this guardian of entropy became obsessed with the darker side of chaos and death, and in the black place these urges led him, the betrayer found a new god, more suited to his nature. He turned against Primus and became the Fallen. Now he is a being of power, darkness, and absolute dedication to Unicron. At the end of the first battle between the two Gods, for his treachery, the Fallen was sealed into extradimensional limbo along with his new master.” Very little of the Fallen’s backstory is given in his actual fictional appearances. Even his altmode, which was designed to be a tank, never appeared in his fictional appearances.

Destiny also fills the gap between the Reign of Starscream storyline, which picked up directly after the conclusion of the first movie, with Starscream returning to Cybertron with plans to rebuild the All Spark Cube from the information Frenzy accessed. The new series fills in the gaps, explaining how Sector 7 formed a new group, and how some of the new autobots and decepticons ended up on Earth, as both appear in the huge opening battle sequence at the Asian factory which opens up the film.

Screenwriter Roberto Orci also mentioned on the Don Murphy message boards that the film’s teaser trailer might be attached to Eagle Eye, which hits theaters on September 26th 2008. Transformers: Destiny will begin to hit comic book store shelves in December, leading up to Revenge in Summer 2009.