IDW - Lost Light #8

Title: An Axe to Break the Ice

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Priscilla Tramontano

Colours by: Joana LaFuente

Letters by: Tom B Long

Editor: Carlos Guzman

Story Consultant: Rachel Stevens

Publisher: Ted Adams

Plot

Years ago, on Caminus, Firestar admonishes Nautica for not being able to find a performing art to specialize in, as is tradition on Caminus, and even starts to flare up in annoyance. At least until Velocity appears and douses her in water, putting out her flame and making Nautica instantly like her.

Over time, Velocity and Nautica help each other with their respective careers, and become the closest of friends, ultimately culminating in her being involved in Nautica's Amica Endurae ceremony on Necroworld before their battle with the DJD.

Today, the two friends are on Troja Major with Anode and Lug, where Nautica is planning to meet with her friend and see if he has a copy of the Map to Cyberutopia, as he has several old and rare Cybertronian relics in his museum. Whilst there, Anode steals some mood pipes for Lug as a present, causing the group to have to run away. Once safe, Anode and Lug reveal that they used to come to this planet all the time before they were "rescued", and they are informed of a few changes to the planet, such as how the Catharsians, the prominent power on the planet, now like to trade in emotions as well as currency. Anode keeps smelling something strange, and drags Lug off to investigate, whilst Nautica and Velocity head off to meet with Agonizer, Nautica's friend.

Anode and Lug arrive at a storage facility where they find a large supply of coffins inside, Anode explains that she can smell some strange sentio metallico there, and they assume that there is a body hidden in there (as the coffins there are not in use). They don't find any bodies, but are shocked when one of the coffins transforms into a robot, one that the duo identify as being a newborn, but before Anode can find anything else, they are met by the Black Block Consortia, who order her to get out of the way of the coffin-bot.

The Consortia troops are confronted by Anode, who wants to know why they want to kill the newborn, but they ignore her and immediately execute the protoforms. Anode begins to protest, but is stopped by a hidden figure, an old colleague of her's Wipe-Out, who ushers the two to follow him.

Soon, the trio are mingling in with the crowd in the street, where Wipe-out explains that two of their other friends, Scammer and Rocket, were found dead by him, having been murdered by someone, who appears to be hunting for Blacksmiths....

The trio hide out in a bar, where Wipe-Out learns that Lug and Anode have transitioned into being females since the last time they met, before quickly switching the conversation to their current issue, who was hunting them down? Wipe-Out assumes it is the Black Block Consortia, since they killed the coffin-bot, however Lug points out that it is unlikely. The Consortia didn't just kill Anode on sight, and the coffin couldn't have been a Blacksmith, so it must be someone else. Wipe-Out quickly catches on, and realizes that it must be their employer, The Grand Architect, who has been calling Blacksmiths to the planet for jobs lately. The group begin to wonder what this is all about, when they notice a Worldsweeper above the bar, the same type of ship that the Architect liked to use.

Anode suggests that they escape before they encounter him, but a group from the vessel teleports into the bar, and seem to be happy with their being TWO blacksmiths for them to cash in on instead of just one!

Meanwhile, Nautica and Velocity arrive at Agnozier's Museum of Curios and Rumoured Objects, where he tries to sell some old texts to Nautica, but Nautica already states that she knows he doesn't have a map, and asks to see what he has on the Knight's artefacts, confusing Velocity as to why they are really there.

In the Knight's room, the two friends are shown around, where Velocity seems impressed with the assembled artefacts and the inclusion of a group of sigils for the Knights on the wall, but Nautica isn't interested and just wants to have access to the Resus Cradle that she had heard he had received lately. But he corrects her that it is a Catharsian on the other side of town who has it. Nautica immediately heads out to see her, but Agonizer warns her to be careful, as her species can't be trusted...

The two friends arrive at the Catharsian's shop, where it is revealed that the Resus Cradle was an artefact of the Knights, used to revive Cybertronians even if their sparks have extinguished, so long as some part of their body can be used to restore the body and life. Nautica explains that she wants to revive Skids, and has his brain module in her possession!

Characters

Autobot

Nautica - Submarine

Velocity - Race Car

Skids - Van (Flashback) Dead

Windblade - VTOL Fighter Jet (Mentioned)

Rodimus - Car (Mentioned)

Getaway - Car (Mentioned)

Decepticon

Starscream - Fighter Jet (Mentioned)

Decepticon Justice Division (Mentioned)

Other Cybertronian/Colonist

Anode - Bi-Plane

Lug - Backpack Equipment

Wipe-Out

Agonizer/The Curator

Flame

The Grand Architect's Troops

Coffin-Bot - Coffin Killed by Black Block Consortia

Firestar (Flashback)

Rocket (Flashback) Dead

Scammer (Flashback) Dead

Cyclonus - Jet (Mentioned)

Necrobot (Mentioned) Dead

Circle of Light (Mentioned)

Primal Vanguard (Mentioned)

The Knights of Cybertron (Mentioned)

The Old Order (Mentioned)

Other

Catharsian Merchant

Black Robed Pedlar

Rusty, the Rust Giant

Black Block Consortia Troops

Troja Major Shoppers and Merchants

The Galactic Council (Mentioned)

The Grand Architect (Mentioned)

The Omega Guardians (Mentioned)

Notes

• The opening pages flashbacks show us what Nautica and Firestar's friendship was like on Caminus, as well as how the former met Velocity, and how they helped each other with their prospective future careers, leading to their reunion seen in MTMTE.
• The guy Anode stole the mood pipes from seems to be a Rust Giant, last seen towards the end of MTMTE.
• Anode's gift of mood pipes for Lug is likely due to her enjoying playing them before her original death (seen when she played them in Anode's hallucinations) and her not having them anymore following her revival.
• We finally get to see the Black Block Consortia in person! And they are revealed to be an offshoot of the Galactic Council that have since broken off. Though they appear to be less "kill all robots" than their former-parent group.
• Agonizer appears to use a character model based on Sixshot, though seems to be recoloured to be more neutral than traditional Decepticon colours, with pale colours and yellow eyes. This is likely a new colour-scheme for him to help distance him from his Decepticon past.
• The "Techy" mentioned in issue one is revealed here to be a regular employer of Anode under the title of "The Grand Architect", who has an interest in protoforms and blacksmiths in general, also explaining why he sent her to Luna 2 in the first place to get the sentio metallico that ended up being used for Lug's new body. It's also shown that he likes to use Worldsweepers, like the one found by the Scavengers filled with mutated protoforms and strange experiments at the start of MTMTE....hmmm.....
• Amongst Agonizer's items are an original copy of the Autobot Code, a previous version of the DJD's list, some of Megatron's old poetry and a series of glyphs that denote the five clans of the Knights of Cybertron, one of which being the same one that has been repeatedly seen throughout MTMTE. He is also the guy who gave Nautica her original print of "Towards Peace"
• It's revealed that Anode and Lug are both Cybertronian, and not Camien as formerly believed. Anode simply ended up on Caminus at some point to help work on her blacksmithing skills.
• It is also revealed that Anode and Lug were once considered male, but chose to transition into females whilst off-world, which apparently was a fairly common practice with Cybertronians who went off-world and encountered gendered species. Explaining the appearance of a few female characters in the flashbacks of Cybertron seen over the years.
• So....I guess Flame was let out of Garrus-9 before Overlord's attack, as I'd guess an Autobot prisoner would have been killed off by Overlord's troops.
• Also, Flame being involved in this story, where Skids appears to be about to be revived in a strange way...are we about to get a zombie invasion thing again?
• Nautica is revealed to have had her left eye removed and replaced with Skids' brain module for safety, explaining her new random eyepatch.
• My expectations: Either Wipe-Out is responsible for the murders, or he will join the crew as Tailgate's replacement...I mean he is a recolour of him!