IDW - More Than Meets the Eye #46

Title: Animals

Written by: James Roberts

Pencils by: Alex Milne

Inks by: Brian Shearer, John Livesay, John Wycough, and Alex Milne

Colours by: Joana LaFuente

Letters by: Tom B. Long & Chris Mowry

Editor: John Barber

Plot

Fort Max flies his shuttle, the Concordat, towards Tebris VII, where he plans to confront the criminal Demus. On the way he detects the Scavengers' ship on the planet's surface, and Red Alert gives him some information on the team, unfortunately for Red though, the Scavengers had previously modified their own articles on Autopedia, meaning that Red gives Fort Max a lot of wrong information, making the Scavengers sound like great terrors, prompting him to arm himself to the teeth for the confrontation.

A short time later, Fort Max has executed Demus for his crimes, and turns his attention to the Scavengers, who deny having done anything wrong (to be fair, they haven't, they were just looking for a job with Demus). Seeing that he wont change his position on the matter, the Scavengers distract Max and go off hiding within the Scrapyard.

Amongst the aisles Misfire starts arguing with Krok about him playing with his "clicker" again, when he pulls it from his grasp and points out that it's just a finger from one of his old team-mates' hands. Krok reveals that he knows it's a finger, but it's also a communictor and scanner due to it once belonging to a friend who turned into a telecom system. Suddenly he notices that there's actually hundreds of signals around him, when normally it doesn't detect anyone.

Fort Max reveals to them (from another aisle) that Demus had been capturing beastformers for years, and had been gutting, lobotomising, and packaging them to be sold to organic parties to use as "torture dolls". The Scavengers point out that they didn't know anything about this, but Max doesn't listen.

Crankcase takes the moment to communicate to the team about how he hopes Max doesn't learn about Grimlock being on their ship, which Red intercepts and reports to Max, he quickly races off towards the ship, to recapture a lost prisoner.

Afterwards, Krok explains to Misfire that he wanted the money offered by Demus to open up a clinic for Cyebrtronians with mental issues, like himself, to help them recover from the toils of the war. Fulcrum however dismisses this, as Fulcrum was willing to sell Grimlock, a mentally disabled Transformer, just to fund his benevolent dream, which Krok cannot deny.

Crankcase reappears and reveals that he planned for Max to intercept the message, so he'd go and recover Grimlock and give them a chance to leave, but Misfire points out that Grimlock is an escaped prisoner, so Max will more than likely kill Grimlock rather than help him.

Due to Demus having the team take a transformation-suppressor before, they can't transform to save Grimlock in time, but Crankcase notices something they can use to travel with...

Fort Max arrives on the Weak Anthropic Principle and calls out to Grimlock, who is busy writing something in his quarters. Max calls out that Grimlock ran away when Overlord attacked Garus-9, which causes the Dinobot to smash through the door and attack his old warden.

Fort Max gets into the fight, and decides that Grimlock has rejoined the Decepticons, and isn't an Autobot any more.

The Scavengers return to the ship, using some of the Roboids (some Equinoids in this case) and stop Max from continuing the fight with Grimlock.

In the calm after the fight, Misfire and the others reveal that they found Grimlock in a brain-damaged state some time ago, and have been trying to help him recover ever since. Max decides that it's best if Grimlock comes back to Luna-1 with him to be worked on by some of their staff there, but Grimlock says he wants to stay with Misfire.

Max doesn't care though, since he's still determined to arrest the Scavengers anyway, so they will be with him anyway. The Scavengers however trick Max into thinking there's a bomb inside Demus' office, which they'll set off if they are arrested, and that will kill all the Roboids.

Max heads off with the Equinoids and goes to diffuse the bomb. The Scavengers take off in their ship to avoid encountering Max again, and decide to make something of their lives now, and plan to travel to several worlds where Decepticons have been stranded, and help them out, however not before another game of "Shoot Shoot, Bang Bang".

Later, Misfire escorts Grimlock back to his quarters and promises to have his door fixed soon, but without an exterior lock this time, prompting Grimlock to thank him, as he appreciates it, confusing Misfire and making him wonder what Grimlock's going to do next to surprise him...ignoring the white board in the quarters with the Mystery Gear symbol and the phrase "Prepare, Confront, Repel" underneath.

Later still, Fort Max leaves the planet in his shuttle and contacts Rung about his world-view, and Rung suggests that the Scavengers, just trying to live their lives now, may be how all Decepticons are since the end of the war, and maybe Max simply has to change his views of the faction. Max then reveals that Spinister left him instructions on how to simply reverse the lobotomies of the Roboids, allowing Max to turn them back to normal, and escort them back to Luna-1 with him for safety.

Later on still, a Decepticon Worldsweeper arrives at the scrapyard, and two robots with the Mystery Gear symbol on their chests decide to abort their mission on this planet and decide to start again elsewhere, since this location has been compromised....

Characters

Autobot
Grimlock - Tyrannosaurus Rex
Fortress Maximus - Tank
Red Alert - Car
Rung (On Communicator)
Topspin - Jet (Flashback)
Springer - Rocket Car/Helicopter (Flashback)
Roadbuster - Jeep (Flashback)
Ironfist - Van (Mentioned)
Ultra Magnus - Vehicle Transport (Mentioned)
Brainstorm - Jet (Mentioned)

Decepticon
Misfire - Jet
Spinister - Helicopter
Crankcase - Van
Fulcrum - Bomb
Krok
Demus Killed by Fortress Maximus
Radar - Portable Telecoms System (Flashback) Killed by Roadbuster
Krok's Old Squad (Flashback) Dead
Overlord - Tank and Jet (Mentioned)
Killmaster (Mentioned)
Thunderwing (Mentioned)

Other
Mystery Gear Guys
Roboids
5 Equinoids
"Nook"
Galactic Council (Mentioned)
Cerebros (Mentioned)
The Grand Architect (Mentioned)

Notes

• It's referenced that Ironfist left hidden messages in the Wreckers: Declassified articles he created...wonder if this will be important later in the series?
• The Weak Anthropic Principle's design looking like the G1 cartoon's incarnation of the Ark is referenced here, as it is revealed to be an actual Autobot ship, simply taken by the Scavengers.
• The "Roadbuster Affair" mentioned as being why Roadbuster wasn't involved in the Garrus-9 mission in Last Srand of the Wreckers is revealed here to be when he was using Syk, and made a Decepticon eat his own spine during battle....seems reasonable!
• Grimlock is mentioned as having "ran" from Garrus-9 during Overlord's occupation of the prison, but that is impossible due to the defences on the planet. It is more than likely he was abducted  (more than likely by the Mystery Gear Guys)
• Fort Max references that Grimlock used to be a Decepticon, which has been hinted at for a while now in the series.
• It's implied at the end of the issue that Grimlock COULD be acting up his brain-damage, as he manages a perfectly normal sentence, much to Misfire's surprise.
• I love Spinister's handwriting :3
• Whoever the Mystery Gear Guys are, they have some Worldsweepers at their disposal, which most likely means that the one that Grimlock was found on belonged to them too
• It is revealed in this issue that Demus wanted Grimlock in order to return him to his allies within the Mystery Gear faction, as he appeared to escape from them at some point in the last few years.
• Red Alert refers to someone on Luna-1 named Cerebros, this is a reference to Fort Max's traditional Headmaster partner, here though he sounds like a neuroscientist based on the context he is mentioned in
• It's revealed here that Luna-1 has kept in contact with the Lost Light since they parted ways, possibly meaning they know about Tyrest going missing.