IDW - More Than Meets The Eye #39

Title: The Permanent Revolution

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Hayato Sakamoto

Colours by: Joana Lafuente

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Coordination: Phases

Editor: John Barber

Plot

[1] Troika

Tarn, Helex and Tesarus have captured and are torturing Blip for the crimes of being involved in a cult and offer him one last request before he dies, which is when he tells Tarn to remove his mask and reveal his true identity, to which Tesarus and Helex simply kill him.

The DJD return to their ship when they encounter their newest member Nickel, who berates them for making a mess of Blip's parts meaning she can't use them for spares, and starts complaining about the team's maintenance skills.

Later, Tesarus is in his Appraisal with Tarn, who is complimenting him on his work with Borebit and Heretech, when Tesarus brings up how Tarn abandoned Vos and Kaon on Ofsted XVII after they were ambused by the Galactic Council whilst trying to take the destroyed Lost Light's Quantum Engines (following them killing the crew).

Tesarus claims to Tarn that Decepticon's don't abandon their teammates, which Tarn takes offence to, as he knows EVERYTHING about being a Decepticon. Soon Helex comes in, and says he's recovered both Vos and Kaon from Ofsted, as they were alive (much to their shock), but he also shows Tarn the new edition of Towards Peace that they took from Trailcutter, which shows Megatron defecting from the Decepticons.

[2] Troska

The DJD return to Messatine where Tarn mulls over these revelations, and tries to kill himself in a tank of Nuke (a supercharged fuel), as his life flashes before his eyes he sees Nickel worriedly looking at him, and decides to break free, announcing a change in plan.

[3] Perestroika

The DJD have tracked down Deathsaurus' warworld, as he is at the top of their list, but Tarn reveals to the team that they aren't there to kill him, or his crew, but simply to talk.

On board the ship, Deathsaurus manages to separate Tarn from the others on the pretence of their talk, but he immediately tries to kill him, on the assumption that that's what they are here for, he also disables his audio sensors so Tarn can't talk him to death, however Tarn hacks into his ship's inter-Decepticon radio frequency and makes the entire crew hear him out, he reveals that due to the recent events of Megatron defecting, he sees that one individual doesn't make up the entire ideal of the Decepticon cause, even if he did start it, and explains how Nickel joined his crew after hearing about the Decepticon ideal, despite being from a now dead colony world called Prion. He invites Deathsaurus and his crew to join him to restart the Decepticons anew, and with a clean slate.

Deathsaurus agrees to join up, if Tarn kills the rest of the DJD, but he refuses. Deathsaurus however reveals that that was a test to see if Tarn treats his men as expendable like Megatron does, and agrees to join forces. 

As such, the united forces decide to target Megatron and the crew of the Lost Light as the first names on the new list....

Characters

Decepticon

Tarn - Tank

Helex - Treaded Mobile Smelting Tank

Tesarus - Treaded Mobile Metal Grinder

Kaon - Variable Volt Harness

Vos - Rifle

Nickel

Deathsaurus

Blue Bacchus

Browning

Gairyu

Yokuryu

Goryu

Rairyu

Kakuryu

Doryu

Leozack

Guyhawk

Jarugar

Killbison

Drillhorn

Deathcobra

Rest of Deathsaurus' Crew

Blip Killed by Tesarus

Soundwave (Flashback)

Alternate Brainstorm - Jet (Flashback) Dies in DJD attack

Alternate Overlord - Tank and Jet (Mentioned) Killed by DJD

Heretech (Mentioned) Captured by DJD

Autobot

Megatron - Tank (Footage)

Optimus Prime (Flashback)

Skids (Flashback)

Alternate Ratchet - Ambulance (Flashback) Killed by DJD

Alternate Drift - Car (Flashback) Killed by DJD

Borebit (Mentioned) Killed by Tesarus

Cybertronian

The Pet

Eucryphia (Mentioned)

Prima (Mentioned)

Thriteen Tribes (Mentioned)

Prion - City/Space Ship (Mentioned) Probably Dead

Prion's Colonists (Mentioned) Killed by Black Block Consortia

Other

Captain K'gard (Flashback)

Galactic Council (Flashback)

Black Block Consortia (Flashback)

Notes

• Blip is shown here in a drastically different design to his previous appearances, this is either an artistic error, due to the new artist, or it's a different character to the previous one.
• The Empyrean Suite is revealed here to be the DJD's "theme tune" and was written by Eucryphia, who was shown to be Nova's ally during the war of the Primes started by Galvatron.
• Tesarus and Helex are revealed to have vehicle modes, meaning we now know the alternate modes for all five of the main DJD members
• This issue confirms without doubt that the alternate Brainstorm was the one who revealed Overlord to the DJD, before this it was just Rewind's theory. One has to wonder though, why didn't the OTHER Brainstorm do the same?
• Tarn has several of his masks sitting on his wall, all somewhat damaged...guess he's sentimental huh?
• Brainstorm's time jump to Messatine in the past altered some of the Nucleon there into the DJD's personal stash of "Nuke"
• The DJD haven't been in contact with Megatron since issue 18 of the Costa Transformers ongoing series
• Deathsaurus' crew is made up of mostly Japanese exclusive Transformers characters. The only ones missing from his Victory cast are Black Shadow (who was killed by the DJD) and Hellbat (who was working with Gigatron)
• Huh...wonder if it's just a coincidence that at the start of the Combiner Wars storyline in the other comics we get a couple of traditionally combiner teams here?
• Nickel is from the Prion colony, showing that female Transformers are available from any of the colonies in theory.
• Speaking of Nickel, she has a few similarities to Fixit from the new Robots in Disguise franchise, meaning she may be a Mini-Con.
• Amongst Tarn's memories, we see a young Skids with his Matrix tattoo, which was also how Skids looked whilst he was helping with the raid of the Primal Basilica in Shadowplay....more evidence for him being Roller perchance?
• It's revealed here that the Galactic Council and Black Block Consortia have started attacking Cybertronian colonies and outposts to try and wipe out the Cybertronians, considering their dwindling numbers now.
• Tarn states that he erases his list in this issue....this means that technically the Scavengers and Drift should be off the list now, and won't be hunted by the DJD.
• Tarn also realizes that the Lost Light crew are still alive, but doesn't question how or why, he just knows he wants them dead.