IDW - More than Meets the Eye #2

Comic Staff

Title: Liars, A to D Part 2: Hangers On

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Alex Milne

Colour by: Josh Burcham

Letters by: Shawn Lee

Editor: John Barber

Storyline

Whilst the rest of the crew are hunting down their missing crew members, Brainstorm and Perceptor work on fixing the ship's Quantum Generator, which was damaged when Ore was pulled into it and melted into it, causing the malfunction that sent the crew elsewhere in space. Rodimus asks Brainstorm to join the search teams to help find some of the others from the air. 

Elsewhere Hoist, Chromedome and Rewind have recovered Cyclonus from the water all whilst Skids suddenly appears in a space ship through a tear in space above them, without them noticing. Skids wakes up in the ship and has trouble remembering things, but he slowly starts remembering things and ejects himself from the ship after setting a crash course for it (he doesn't know why he's done that though). The Ship crashes near to where Skids lands and some large robots chanting "Nineteen Eighty-Four" come out of the rubble.

On the Lost Light Rung is being treated for his injury caused by Cyclonus in the medibay, when rtachet starts getting concerned over his own fingers tensing up again, and explains to him that Tailgate is ancient, so he's called in Swerve to examine him and carbon date him. Drift calls in and says that they've located all but 2 of their lost crewmen and asks Ratchet to make the medibay cheery for them to heal better. Ratchet gets annoyed, and even more so when Swerve says that Drioft now thinks the Knights have become beams of light now. Ratchet gets ready to start treating Whirl (grumpily) when he wakes up and attacks Rung, until Rung tells him to stop or Magnus will send him to jail, after that Whirl just leaves in a strop.

Tailgate wakes up and assumes he's on the Ark. Tailgate begs Ratchet to let him tell him and he agrees. Tailgate very carefully and very hilariously tells him he's been asleep for six million years, which causes Tailgate to scream, and could be heard outside the ship.

Skids fights off the 1984 bots and comes across the corpses of Hyperion and Polaris, and he uses Polaris as a weapon and causes him to explode on one of the 2 robots, killing it, leaving one still alive.

On the bridge of the Lost Light Cyclonus is looking out the windows and is granted permission to join the crew, if he behaves (despite him having helped kill some of their friends in the past) and Ultra Magnus agrees too, bringing Whirl into the bridge as well. Rodimus has the two troublemakers make up after their fight on Cybertron and Cyclonus embraces the Autobot in a hug, but whispers that he'll kill him for attacking him before and then leaves.

Swerve and Tailgate go out onto the planet and Swerve becomes obsessed with trying to get Tailgate to transform (especially since he's been told to take it easy for a while) and they start to bond and they meet up with Chromedome and Rewind who are heading back since Brainstorm has found Polaris and Hyperion's corpses when suddenly Skids crashes from the sky in front of them. Chromedome takes the inhibitor claw off Skids' back, enabling him to use his built in weapons and finishes off the last of the 1984 robots. Skids is offered a ride on the Lost Light, which he accepts, whilst Tailgate seems fascinated by the now dead robot.

Later the Lost Light takes off again and Rodimus greets his crew on the bridge and tries to keep up morale despite the bad first day. Swerve has finally convinced Tailgate to transform, and whilst he does that (very slowly) Swerve goes and talks to Skids and explains what their mission is, which Skids isn't too thrilled about.

The Crew decide that they need a name, and a debate starts, but during the discussion Red Alert calls from a lower deck and says that there's possibly a Sparkeater on the ship, as he's found Shock dead, with his spark ripped out as well.

Characters

Autobot


Rodimus - Speedy Car
Ultra Magnus - Truck
Drift
Skids - Van
Brainstorm - Jet
Perceptor - Treaded Vehicle
Chromedome
Rewind - Giant Memory Stick
Hoist - Tow-Crane
Ratchet
Rung - Communications Maintenance Buggy
Whirl - Osprey Helicopter
Swerve - Van-Buggy
Red Alert
Shock - Treaded Vehicle Killed by Sparkeater
Ore - Treaded Vehicle Killed by Quantum Generator Accident
Polaris - Car Dead
Hyperion - Treaded Vehicle Dead
Trailbreaker - Van
Blaster
Inferno
Hound
Mainframe
Sunstreaker
Grapple
Cosmos
Smokescreen
Powerglide
Brawn
Huffer
Gears
Pointblank
Pipes Injured in Crash
Rollout Injured in Crash
Sureshot Injured in Crash
Highbrow (Mentioned)
Springer (Mentioned)
Rack 'N' Ruin (Mentioned)
The Wreckers (Mentioned)
Omnibots (Mentioned)
Monsterbots (Mentioned)
Lost Light Crew Members

Cybertronian 


Tailgate - Car?
Cyclonus - Space Jet
The Knights of Cybertron (Mentioned)
The Circle of Light (Mentioned)
Galvatron - Laser Cannon (Mentioned)
Nova Prime - Truck (Mentioned)

Other


1984 Bots - Gestalt Spaceship Killed by Skids
Diagnostic Drone
Vector Sigma (Mentioned)
Warriors Elite (Mentioned)
Sparkeater (Mentioned)
Agents of Chaos (Mentioned)

Comic Notes

• Brainstorm is still holding his briefcase holding "The Unmentionable", since he is also said to transform in this story it can be assumed that either the briefcase can become a part of his alternate mode, or his right hand is leading to a storage area inside his alternate mode
• Perceptor seems to have given up on his sniper side and appears to be a full time scientist again
• The Duobots, Shock and Ore, sound like they should be the counterparts to the Duocons, but they don't seem to be made up of 2 vehicles each...just one (a tracked one each)
• Nothing about Skids' past is currently known, but it can be assumed that it was exciting (Can I smell a Skids miniseries on the horizon?)
• The massive bots who were chasing Skids keep repeating "Nineteen Eighty-Four" In the real world this is when the Transformers franchise began, but it obviously means something else in this continuity, maybe it's Skids' prisoner number? A file number? Who knows! (Well I guess James Roberts does, but we won't for a while I'd guess)
• Ratchet has a Diagnostic Drone in the lab with him on the Lost Light
• Ratchet's solution for his fingers getting a big stiff is to whack them with a big mallet....issues?
• Drift has become more spiritual since his near death experience during Chaos (y'know, when he tried to kill himself?)
• Whirl was in prison for a while, and is now on a final warning after doing something to Springer (Whirl was mentioned to be all but lost to the Wreckers in Bullets, so maybe this is what was meant by that)
• Because of a joke by Swerve Tailgate thinks Whirl's name is "Nut-Job".
• Swerve has now promised half of his rations to Ratchet for letting him tell Tailgate he's been asleep for 6 million years
• Hyperion and Polaris died whilst they were ejected from the ship (and Skids seems to have known them before he went missing). Or they might have been killed by the 1984 bots since they're still smoking and flaming
• Polaris is in vehicle mode after death, implying that was his preferred mode.
• Cyclonus is revealed to have hitched along with the Lost Light by holding onto the hull before take-off as he didn't want to be on Cybertron anymore (after it's massive changes). Like Whirl, he's on a final warning as well (since he led the attack on Kimia and killed dozens of Autobots)
• Swerve compares Rewind and Chromedome to Rack 'N' Ruin due to their closeness
• Skids didn't realize he was holding a handgun all the time he was fighting the 1984 bots...i'm sure there's a story to that somewhere
• Metallurgists were called "Skin Specialists" in Tailgate's day
• Most of the crowd scene on the bridge of the ship is very clear, but a couple of the characters are either completely new designs or are coloured in shadow, so it's too hard to identify them
• Swerve wants to retake the "-con" suffix from the Decepticons, so as the team can be called "The Crusadercons"
• The Lost Light was a Neutral ship before Rodimus and his team bought it (I guess they bought it off a NAIL or something)
• The Lost Light has lost contact with Cybertron (most likely due to distance) which is why Bumblebee and the others think they're dead
• Roadbuster was mentioned to have had a dealing with Sparkeaters before, also in Bullets.
• The possible plots that Swerve jokes about to Skids COULD be real artifacts in this continuity, and seem to be based on previous storylines from the franchise. The 12 fragments of the Primal Lock are most likely based on the Cyber Planet keys and Omega lock from Cybertron, the Infinity Gate is most likely a reference to any plot device space gateway or some sort (like the one from The Face of Nijika) and the Agents of Chaos are most likely Unicron's minions. He even mentions the Multiverse, which is a common theme in the TFCC comics.
• The OSAL on Tailgate's arm originally said "Bomb Disposal" but it's just worn off over the years
• It's considered rude to ask what another robot's alternate mode is
• The first planned start for the Lost Light is New Crystal City, so they can try and recruit the Circle of Light to join their quest