IDW - Till All Are One #10

Title: The Price of You

Written by: Mairghread Scott

Art by: Sara Pitre-Durocher

Colours by: Joana LaFuente

Letters by: Tom B Long

Editor: Carlos Guzman

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

Starscream speaks with his imaginary Bumblebee friend about his recent bad choices with the judgement on the Badgeless officer, and releasing Chromia on the condition that she killed Liege Maximo, and also bemoans that Elita One is almost finished with her repairs on her ship, and is preparing to take off again, whilst stilling milking the "sacrifices" she made during the Titans attack.

Starscream receives a message from an employee of his, whom Bumblebee urges him to ignore, but Starscream still decides to meet with the sender, his secret Mnemosurgeon employee, Airachnid.

Airachnid has been working for Starscream for some time now to try and find Swindle, by entering the minds of other Decepticons, and later worked on the Combaticons following their capture. She was forced into exile from Eukaris due to her experimenting on and torturing other Eukarians, leading to her arrival on Cybertron.

Airachnid explains that whilst altering the minds of the Combaticons is too risky, as they may notice inconsistencies between the events they remember, but since they already have shared a mind once, she can control all of them by having one of them altered, and act as a lynchpin for the story so the others don't question it....

Blast Off wakes up in his apartment with Onslaught, where the two are getting ready for another day working on protecting Starscream, and then they lean in for a kiss....Starscream intrudes, pausing Onslaught in place, revealing to Blast Off that all of this is still in his mind.

Starscream proceeds to point out how all the other Combaticons are monsters, but Blast Off wants things to be better, so he offers him to have his mind altered so that it looks like the Combaticons have been working for Starscream all along, and that Swindle was shot by accident during the riots. Blast Off is, of course angry at this idea since it goes against everything they've fought over, but Starscream offers to also make Onslaught notice him when he wakes up, and also allow Blast Off to remember the truth, but also have the new memories too, in exchange for the Combaticons protecting him as Bruticus in the future.

Starscream manipulates Blast Off and points out that Onslaught will never notice him on his own, and will just start a new coup when he wakes up, whilst the Combaticons are treated as criminals, just as Starscream leaves...Blast Off agrees....

A little later, the Combaticons, including Swindle have started coming around, and Starscream tells Ironhide that Airachnid believes that the Enigma of Combination caused Bruticus to go on his rampage. Ironhide isn't happy, but accepts Starscream's story, but is still insistent on finding out who stole the Enigma to cause them to combine in the first place.

Onslaught wakes up to find Blast Off standing over his bed, they joke about Blast Off plotting against Onslaught, until Onslaught starts to notice something new about Blast Off......

Characters

Autobot

Chromia - Speed Bike

Ironhide - Van

Bumblebee - Cybertronian Car (Hallucination-Ghost)

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet (Mentioned)

Decepticon

Blast Off - Space Shuttle

Onslaught - Anti-Aircraft Tank

Vortex - Helicopter (Flashback)

Brawl - Tank (Flashback)

Swindle - Van (Flashback) Mind repaired by Airachnid

Bruticus - Combaticon Gestalt (Flashback)

Rioters (Flashback)

United Cybertron

Starscream - Fighter Jet

"Guilty" Badgeless Officer

Badgeless Officers (Flashback)

Colonists

Airachnid - Spider

Blackarachnia - Spider (Flashback)

Other Fate Spinner (Flashback)

Airachnia's Victims (Flashback) Dead

Elita One (Mentioned)

Other Cybertronian

Vigilem - Carcer Spaceship Dead

Liege Maximo (Mentioned)

Notes

• This is the first issue reviewed since the announcement that Till All Are One was cancelled after issue 12, so it's been revealed that this final story arc is essentially a wrap-up plot for the main characters
• Also along with the announcement a few abandoned plot lines were disclosed, including one where Elita One almost starts a new war from Kaon, Knock Out fat-shaming "Breakdown", and the "wedding" of Lightbright and Sparkstalker...Maaaaaaybe ending here was a good idea after all?
• It's revealed that the Mnemosurgeon who was assaulting Decepticons at the start of this series was Airachnid, who is a Eukarian who has been in Starscream's employ for some time now
• She's unnamed here, but the third Fate Spinner in Airachnid's flashback looks sort of like a brown version of Beast Wars Insecticon, who turned into a beetle.
• Airachnid is a straight transplant of the same character from Transformers: Prime, except that she appears to transform into a spider, rather than a helicopter here.
• Okay, I have a massive problem with the ending of this story, everyone seems completely fine with Onslaught having his mind altered to make him "notice" Blast Off in a romantic way, whilst it could be argued that Blast Off was forced to do this, or be stuck in a comatose state, but he wasn't, this was just an incentive offered by Starscream, Blast Off didn't need to accept having Onslaught fall for him in this forced manner. I would love to see how the audience would react if it was a character like Arcee who was forced to "notice" another Autobot to try and reign in her violent tendencies, like was done here.