Transformers 5: Does Onslaught Photo Reveal Combaticons?

Nothing can prepare you for Onslaught. --Michael Bay

Transformers: The Last Knight is the fifth installment in what is arguably the most successful-yet-hated movie franchise on the planet - and the film's subtitle, "The Last Knight" has not made it any new friends. Nor has the fact that franchise director Michael Bay is back at the helm, despite his previous claim to having been done with the series after Age of Extinction.

Still, Transformers has as many fans as detractors (that last billion-dollar box office didn't earn itself...), so production on The Last Knight has been watched with as much anticipation as the other franchise installments. At this point, Michael Bay himself has become savvy about managing fan curiosity, and steadily feeds us tantalizing tidbits to sustain interest and curiosity.

Today's tease is of a new character named "Onslaught," who we see in vehicle form, an eighteen-wheeler truck that look like a serious rival for Optimus Prime!

Transformers fans will likely take away a fair amount speculation from this latest tease by Bay: Onslaught has traditionally been the leader of the Combaticons, a Decepticon warrior faction that all transform into military vehicles. The Combaticons could also merge themselves into a much bigger transformer, Bruticus.

If you saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, you know that Bay can take cool Transformers characters like the Constructicons and their merged form, Devastator, and transform them into clownish, ball-dragging versions of themselves. That's all to say: here's hoping Onslaught and (possibly) the Combaticons are an apology letter to fans for that unseemly Devastator business - and not just a repeat of some bad history.

Transformers: The Last Knight will be in theaters on June 23, 2017.