IDW - Lost Light #12

Title: The Plotter's Club Part 3: Journey's End

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Jack Lawrence & Andrew Griffith

Colours by: Joana LaFuente, John-Paul Bove & Priscilla Tramontano

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Assistant Editor: David Mariotte

Editor: Carlos Guzman

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

Getaway counts to 30 and declares Riptide dead, having had him in the oil reservoir for long enough for the Scraplets to have eaten him now. Atomizer expresses his distaste for what just happened again, but Getaway ignores him, concentrating more on how the security team seem unwilling to fire n Autobots, so he plans to have Sunder work on them, or even bring in someone without a connection to the crew...

The Lost light exits the Warren for a recharge, and Perceptor is shocked that the ship appears to have time travelled a short time whilst in the Warren. The crew is about to re-enter the Warren to reach Cyberutopia when Getaway informs Blaster that they have a rendezvous to make...

In the Oil Reservoir, now alone, Riptide manages to escape the oil, having retained his transformation skill despite Getaway using the Nudge Gun to remove that skill.

Getaway, Froid and Atomizer meet in Swerve's bar, where they experience one of the time windows showing Rodimus and the other guys that were betrayed by Getaway hanging out before their exiling. Froid asks Getaway if he thinks they survived the attack from the DJD, which Getaway seems confident that they did, then begins to wax on about how he'll be named a Prime after finding Cyberutopia. Froid partially diagnoses Getaway as having Primus Apeothesis, and that he is trying to become like Optimus. He then goes on to say that hopes Rung survived the attack, since he was one of the "good guys" in life.

Later, Getaway takes Atomizer to the Medibay where he orders him to kill either Hot Spot, First Aid or Rook, stating that doing so will stop the potential threat of Defensor combining. Atomizer takes some time to decide, but ultimately kills Rook, likely due to him not knowing him. He immediately regrets the choice, as he figures he could have just shot him into space instead of killing him. Getaway now states that Atomizer has blood on his hands now, just like him, meaning he's no better than him now...unaware that Riptide is watching from a panel in the ceiling....

Meanwhile, the Scavengers are raiding an old Decepticon base on the planet Frayus, when they leave and discover the Black Block Consortia fighting with both the Galactic Council and the Decepticon Justice Division, now under the command of Nickel, and made mostly of Deathsaurus' troops. The Scavengers try to teleport away to their ship, but the signal is unable to lock on, as they ship might be damaged. However they are saved when someone rescues them through a spacebridge portal, which they run through, soon followed accidentally by Nickel being blown into the portal by an explosion.

Back on the Lost Light, Riptide frees the comatose Autobots, they mourn Rook's death, and First Aid determines that Riptide must be immune to the Nudge Gun due to his lower intelligence. They head off towards the shuttle bay to escape the ship, after taking Ambulon's body from the morgue. Mirage scouts ahead and tells the others that the shuttle bay is filled with security, so they decide to combine, using Ambulon as a replacement for Rook.

Inside the shuttle bay, Getaway and the others are welcoming a new shuttle, containing their new security chief, when Defensor smashes through the wall and attacks the security team. Thunderclash strikes Getaway, but before he can do much more, he is shot in the side of his head by Star Saber, the new security chief, and is knocked out.

Getaway orders his new recruit to take Defensor apart, since he is an "unbeliever" Mirage tries to reason with Star Saber, but the fanatic simply slices him to pieces, much to Atomizer's horror. Star Saber soon attacks Defensor and slices him into his component parts, and the security team kill Streetwise, Blades, Groove and Hot Spot as they fall. He goes towards First Aid and Riptide, who are dragging Thunderclash to safety, when Atomizer jumps him and shoots him in the neck, giving the others the time to steal Star Saber's shuttle and escape.

Later, Getaway calls Froid to have Sunder alter the memories of the security team to make them think that Thunderclash killed Atomizer, in order to cover for him just killing him himself, but the doctor is demanding more and more spinal cords as payment. Before they can agree on the price however, Blaster contacts Getaway with some good news...they have arrived at Cyberutopia...a beautiful rainbow hued version of Cybertron!

Characters

Autobot

Getaway - Car

Atomizer - Car Killed by Getaway

Sunder - Car

Thunderclash - Truck Injured by Star Saber

Riptide - Boat

Mirage - Race Car Killed by Star Saber

First Aid - Ambulance

Rook - Armoured Personnel Carrier Killed by Atomizer

Hot Spot - Fire Truck Killed by Security Team

Groove - Police Motorcycle Killed by Security Team

Blades - Rescue Helicopter Killed by Security Team

Streetwise - Police Car Killed by Security Team

Ambulon - Leg Dead

Defensor - Protectobot Combiner Most of Team Dead, so Defunct

Grimlock - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Mainframe

Perceptor - Tank

Blaster - Acoustic Tank

Jackpot - Car

Smokescreen - Car

Inferno - Fire Truck

Pointblank - Car

Aquabat - Winged Monster/Boat

Grotusque - Winged Sabertooth Tiger

Doublecross - Two Headed Dragon

Dogfight - Jet

Powerflash - Jet

Boss - Car

Other Lost Light Crew Members

Rodimus - Car (Flashback Window Only)

Megatron - Tank (Flashback Window Only)

Minimus Ambus - Minesweeper (Flashback Window Only)

Skids - Van (Flashback Window Only)

Nautica - Submarine (Flashback Window Only)

Brainstorm - Jet (Flashback Window Only)

Swerve - Van (Flashback Window Only)

Tailgate - Car (Flashback Window Only)

Velocity - Race Car (Flashback Window Only)

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab (Mentioned)

Rung - Photon Crystal Generator (Mentioned)

Decepticon

Fulcrum - Bomb

Misfire - Jet

Spinister - Helicopter

Crankcase - Van

Krok

Nickel - Rocket Car

Deathsaurus - Dragon

Eaglebreast - Chest Piece

Tigerbreast - Chest Piece

Liokaiser - Breastforce Combiner

Previous Decepticon Justice Division (Mentioned) Dead

Starscream - Jet (Mentioned)

Shockwave - Flying Artillery (Mentioned) Dead

Tarn - Tank (Mentioned) Dead

Genericons (Mentioned)

Other Cybertronian

Star Saber - Jet

Froid - Jet

Red Scraplets

Cyclonus - Space Jet (Flashback Window Only)

Knights of Cybertron (Mentioned)

Primus (Mentioned)

Other

Galactic Council Troops

Black Block Consortia Troops

The Scavengers' Saviour (Voice Only)

Notes

• Getaway claims at the start of the issue that the security team is unwilling to fire on other Autobots, yet at the end they slaughter the Protectobots. This either means that Getaway is wrong, or he has already made arrangements with Sunder to alter their minds further.
• It's off-handedly mentioned that travelling through the Warren causes the ship to travel backwards in time briefly...I'm gunna guess that that will be an important plot point later...
• Riptide managed to survive his swim with the Scraplets. From the looks of things he launched himself out of the oil which got him to safety, but how did he avoid getting eaten by them? He's obviously been bitten from his small wounds, but still! Eaten within 30 seconds remember?
• Getaway is shown looking into the past at Swerve's bar, as we also saw in MTMTE #50. We can probably assume that this happens at the same time as Getaway's last panel view into the past in that issue, since the window is only open for a short period of time.
• So turns out that Getaway DOES know about the Protectobots being able to combine into Defensor. I guess the Lost Light got a dossier about the events of Combiner Wars then?
• Getaway's logic that killing a Protectobot that turns into a leg or the torso of Defensor to disable the combiner is technically sound, except the Protectobots he names as legs haven't been shown as legs in IDW so far. Also since Mirage is also able to turn into a limb for Optimus Maximus, he could have stood in. The only real option for this logically would be to kill Hot Spot, being the only one who turns into a torso in the group.
• Also speaking about this scene, where is Mirage in the medibay? We see an empty slab, so was he just invisible whilst in a coma? Was he just offscreen and they left an empty bed for some reason?
• Shockingly we actually see the conflict on the planet Frayus that Getaway ignored the SOS to last issue. Though maybe it was a good thing that he had them ignore the call since the DJD turned up to join in on the fight too.
• It's revealed that Deathsaurus was the one who sent Fulcrum to prison in the first place. Seems he's changed his thoughts on aiding "criminals" over the past few years.
• Hey look! Nickel has an alternate mode! It's a cute rocket powered car of some sort!! Awww
• It's unclear who recued the Scavengers, but my guess would be either Scorponok, Fortress Maximus, Prowl, or someone on Necroworld.
• Oh wow...Liokaiser....where do I start here? We saw that MOST of the Breastforce were in Deathsaurus' troops when we last saw them at the end of MTMTE, but this appearance is confusing for a couple of reasons. First, how are they combining? Successful multi-bot combinations were unstable before Devastator, and later the Enigma of Combination, so unless Deathsaurus somehow "borrowed" the Enigma to combine them, then this should be an unstable combiner. Secondly, Guyhawk is seen as part of the combination...Guyhawk was a member of Gigatron's forces in Drift: Empire of Stone...a series where he died on-screen....maybe this is his cousin Galhawk?
• First Aid claims to have not gotten to know Rook....HE WAS PART OF YOUR COMBINER TEAM!!!! It's been established since combiners became commonplace in IDW that once you combine, you get a fragment of the other members of your team's mind inside yours forever, as clearly shown with the Constructicons and even Optimus starting to act more Prowl-like in his mannerisms.
• So Riptide was immune to the Nudge Gun because he is dumb? I personally prefer my theory that the gun just malfunctioned on him due to Getaway forgetting to recharge it now...
• Oh...Ambulon is back in his robot mode? Wasn't he reconfigured into a gun on Luna-1? I guess he got put back together since then? Also he can still be used for combination. Last time we saw a dead Transformer used as part of a combination was when Scrapper's corpse was used for Devastator's leg...which wasn't able to move properly...yet Defensor is fine here....yup...
• Ohh! Star Saber! YAY!!!
• He kills Mirage and easily defeats Defensor? Booo....
• Getaway alludes to how Star Saber agrees to join the crew as a means to get revenge on Cyclonus, who managed to defeat him last time they met.
• As predicted, Atomizer turns against Getaway at the climax of this issue, allowing First Aid, Thunderclash and Riptide to escape....then he gets murdered by Getaway...I wasn't expecting that part!
• Okay conspiracy theory time! I think most of the end of this issue is a false looped memory of Getaway's. I think Froid is fed up with him, when he learns that Rung is probably amongst the dead on Necroworld now, and he had Sunder trap him either just before or just after Rook's death, and gave him all he ever wanted to keep him placid (finding Cyberutopia, getting a powerful ally like Star Saber, defeating Defensor and the others etc).
• Hey, notice how annoyed Getaway looks when Skids calls Nautica his best friend in the flashback window? I wonder if Getaway will justify his old friend's death because of this moment?