Titan - ROTF Volume 2 #18

Basic Information

Cover Characters: Optimus Prime

Cover Art: Barry Spiers, Bambos Georgiou & Hi-Fi Studios

Cover Date: November/December 2010

Price: £2.50

Poster: Optimus and his swords

Comic Title: Shadow War

Script: Simon Furman

Art: Jon Davis-Hunt

Colours: Hi-Fi Design

Lettering: Den Patrick

Comic Plot

Crankstart, Brimstone and Trenchmouth are causing mayhem in Salt Lake City, Utah with Bumblebee and his new covert team of Hubcap and Slapdash watching on silently, waiting for them to leave the populated area, and are forced to watch them hurting humans and causing damage to the City before they finally leave the city and go into the wilderness (to head to Las Vegas it seems).

Once away from the humans, the team attack them and swiftly disable or kill the entire team, then call it it.

Later Springer arrives back at Autobase with the defeated Decepticons in his cargo, with Optimus wondering if what they're doing is right, and if they're any better than the Decepticons by doing this.

Elsewhere Bludgeon declares that it's time to go to war.

Comic Characters

Autobots

Optimus Prime - Truck Cab

Ironhide - Pick Up Truck

Bumblebee - Concept Camaro

Slapdash - Sports Car

Hubcap - Vintage Car

Decepticons

Bludgeon - Tank

Crankstart - Military Buggy (Killed/Injured by Bumblebee)

Trenchmouth - Motorcycle (Killed/Injured by Bumblebee's Team)

Brimstone - Motorcycle (Killed/Injured by Bumblebee's Team)

Comic Notes

• This starts the point where Titan turned Bi-Monthly until the relaunch again...it was an irritating time..
• Bumblebee's Shadow Ops team is introduced here
• Bumblebee's team was formed to keep the Autobot operations under the radar of the human media and NEST itself
• Only Optimus and Ironhide know about Bumblebee's team
• It's very likely that Crankstart's little group actually killed some humans in this story!
• The fates of the Decepticons are a bit ambiguous...it's safe to assume that Crankstart is dead, but the other two could have survived being shot at and being near an explosion
• Bludgeon's epilogue seems to lead directly into the events of issues 20 and 21
• Bludgeon's blade seems to be able to flip out now.
• Despite being established as rivals elsewhere, Hubcap and Brimstone never really interact here or mention it.

Extra Features

Adverts

Competitions

The Secret World of NEST - Word Search

Megatron's Mind Maulers - Puzzles

Megatron Talks - Interview with Megs

Megatron - Tank Mode - Look at Meg's new tank mode

Prime-ary Colours - Colour in this month's comic cover

Bumblebee's Guide: The Solar System - Saturn

Race for Cybertron! - A game board to play on

Law & Disorder - Barricade and Ironhide chat away

Mega Maze! - A maze puzzle