IDW - Lost Light #15

Title: The Scavengers in: Kill All 'Cons

Written by: James Roberts

Art by: Brendan Cahill and Sara Pitre-Durocher

Colours by: Joana LaFuente

Letters by: Tom B. Long

Editor: David Mariotte

Publisher: Greg Goldstein

Plot

Grimlock, shackled, is taken to meet with Scorponok and Flame, where he demands to know what has been going on, and even feigning that he doesn't know or care about the Scavengers, whom he killed in his cell just before.

Scorponok and Flame explain that they took the Magnificence from Grimlock's chest, but that it has developed some sort of moral code, not answering anyone that it deems untrustworthy, however due to Scorponok having human brain patterns inside his head, thanks to his previous bonding with Abraham Dante, he is still able to get answers from it. Soon however, the Scavengers arrive and surround Scorponok and Flame, taking the Magnificence from them. They explain that Nickel was able to force Grimlock into his dinosaur mode, letting him think clearer, thanks to her theory that he has extra pressure on his brain module in robot mode, making him unable to think properly. Spinister is allowed to examine his brain in this mode, so he can be back to his old self. In the process Krok gets the idea to have Nickel and Spinister carefully take the Scavengers to pieces and make it look like they've died, so they can get Grimlock out, and escape when the guards leave the cell open, since why would someone lock up a cell of corpses?

The team try to figure out what Scorponok's ultimate goal is, but he is unwilling to tell them, however Fulcrum just asks the Magnifence. Scorponok, unwilling to let someone else take his thunder, he opens his chest and reveals his ultimate goal...a purple baby human with a Decepticon insignia printed on the face inside a pod. He plans to transplant all Decepticon sparks into organic bodies, allowing them to reproduce and create a massive army that they will then be transplanted into new mechanical bodies, to finally take down the Autobots.

Scorponok offers to let the Scavengers join him as commanders in his new army, if they simply kill Grimlock. The crew however immediately decline the offer, stating that they don't want to go back to war.

Scorponok is disappointed, but simply waves his hand, taking control of all their sparks, utilizing their badges being made from their spark casing as weapons. He intends to use their sparks to power the next few organic Decepticons, however before he can succeed, Nickel reaches the Magnificence, which gives her the solution, she throws her communicator to Scorponok, telling him it's a call for him.

Scorponok puts the communicator to his head, where he hears Tarn, who's voice slowly and painfully paralyses him. Flame calls for help from the other troops on the ship, whilst Grimlock prepares to finish off Scorponok, being stopped by Misfire, who wants to rescue the baby, since she's innocent in all this.

Soon, the Scavengers, now with the Firstborn of the new Decepticon army and the Magnificence in tow fight their way to a transmat suite, led bythe Magnificence's direction, where Misfire explains his plan, they should head to Garrus-9, so they can use their spark extractor technology to remove the Decepticon spark from the baby, and place it back inside one of the many dead bodies in the prison.

The Magnificence gives them the galactic coordinates to Garrus-9, but brings up that the organic baby will not survive a trip through the transmat chamber. Grimlock takes the baby's pod and places it inside his Magnificence brace, keeping it safe. However Misfire realizes that this means Grimlock can't join them in escaping, which he is not allowing. The Scavengers huddle up to decide what to do, but Grimlock just shoves them through the portal and destroys the controls, and gets ready to fight their oncoming attackers alone, declaring that he'll protect the baby, like Misfire protected him...

The Scavengers arrive inside Grimlock's old cell in Garrus-9, where they find the door locked, their communicators are all gone or broken, and the Magnificence has stopped working....leaving the crew to ask Krok what they should do now....

Several years earlier, Flywheels is rescued from floating in space by Krok and his crew, the Foragers, who have just stolen a prison escort ship, and Misfire starts trying to think up a new name for their group...

Nearby, Scorponok and Flame met a large ball of light which declares itself as "The Grand Architect" and tells them that they belong to him now....

Characters

Autobot

Grimlock - Tyrannosaurus Rex

Decepticon

Misfire/Flyhigh - Jet Trapped in Grimlock's Old Garrus-9 Cell

Fulcrum - K-Class Bomb Trapped in Grimlock's Old Garrus-9 Cell

Spinister - Helicopter Trapped in Grimlock's Old Garrus-9 Cell

Crankcase - Van Trapped in Grimlock's Old Garrus-9 Cell

Nickel - Rocket Ppowered Car Trapped in Grimlock's Old Garrus-9 Cell

Krok Trapped in Grimlock's Old Garrus-9 Cell

"The Firstborn"

Tarn - Tank (Voice Recording)

Flywheels - Tank/Jet (Flashback Only)

Rat-a-tat-tat (Mentioned) Spark used to Power "The Firstborn"

Thundersaur (Mentioned) Dead

Grand Architect's Faction

Scorponok - Scorpion Paralyzed by Tarn's voice message

Flame - Car

Worldsweeper Crew

The Grand Architect (Flashback Only)

The Infinites (Mentioned)

Other Cybertronian

Agnoizer/The Curator (Mentioned)

Sparkeaters (Mentioned)

Human

Abraham Dante (Mentioned) Presumably Dead

Notes

• Further adding to the theory that the Magnificence is the remains of one of the Knights of Cybertron, it is said to have developed a moral code, rather than just answering every question asked.
• Scorponok mentions that he still has traces of Abraham Dante in his head, this implies that they are not binary bonded any more, likely meaning that he was removed in Garrus-9, and possibly died It's also likely that the Firstborn's genetic information likely came from Dante, since it does look quite human.
• I totally called it last issue with Nickel and Spinister making it just look like they were all killed by Grimlock!
• It's revealed that Grimlock's brain damage for the last few years has been due to pressure being applied to his brain...maybe if Spinister had of given him an actual check-up over these last years then he would have been fixed ages ago!
• Okay....having a baby human inside Scorponok is getting us dangerously close to pregnant transformers being canon and not just a creepy fan-art sub-genre...I agree with Fulcrum, it's disgusting...
• I don't get Scorponok's plan...I mean I'm sure he can transplant sparks into organic bodies, that's not much different to having organic alternate modes, or the Treecons from last issue, what I has a problem with is the reproduction thing, and then using the sparks from the offspring to create a massive Decepticon army in the future....why would a spark, which would be added to the body following birth naturally, also be reproduced too? That's not how sparks work...if he was making a Decepticon Matrix or something, then sure, but this makes no real sense to me.
• This issue confirms an earlier reveal that the Decepticon insignia is made using a piece of the Decepticon's own spark chamber, and that Scorponok used this process to control other Decepticons, as he did with making Grimlock sleep and wake up last issue. This is also likely further reasoning for the Decepticons and even Drift acting weird and combining during the Chaos event.
• Tarn is shown to have recorded a special message for Nickel on her communicator, allowing her to paralyze an opponent if needed. We learned last issue that he could use his vocal powers over a communicator when he did it to Shockwave, so it also turns out that he can do it via recordings.....did he never just try using this skill over a loudspeaker or something?!
• We don't see Scorponok again after the Scavengers get the Firstborn out of his chest, so he might actually have been killed by Tarn's voice message! (Also Grimlock was about to skewer him with his sword before he was stopped so they could rescue the baby)
• So, Grimlock actually does appreciate Misfire's help over the past few years, and now wants to do the same to keep the Firstborn safe. I wonder how long until he gets captured by the Worldsweeper's crew or Scorponok using his spark control power again?
• So, the Scavengers arrive in Grimlock's old cell in Garrus-9...I have a couple of questions....Why would the Magnificence send them there? They wanted to get to the spark extractor room, so why send them to his cell? Also during Last Stand of the Wreckers, the team find Grimlock's cell empty....why did they lock it back up after opening it?
• I'm not too worried about the Scavengers however, we saw in issue 12 that Agonizer could find them on a random planet to rescue them, so I'm sure he can do it again!
• It's revealed that Crankcase, before properly joining the Scavengers, was the pilot of the prison ship carrying Misfire to prison. The ship appears to be the Weak Anthropic Principle, and it was shown that Crankcase was the ship's pilot in More Than Meets The Eye.
• Just as with the corpse theory from last issue, I also called that Flywheels' disappearance from the group after leaving the Garrus-9 escape ship would lead to him meeting the other Scavengers for the first time.
• To my utter shock however, it turns out that Scorponok is NOT the Grand Architect, but rather some other figure who takes the form of a ball of light in space...intriguing....
• Okay, here's my theory on the finale of this series now: The Knights of Cybertron, are the Guiding Hand, and the five symbols we've seen repeatedly representing them are their individual sigils. The Grand Architect will be revealed to be Adaptus, who is known for being the supposed originator of the transformation cog, and his sigil resembling a gear. If true then my theory on Epistemus being the Magnifence, Solomus being the crystal inside the Matrix (creating the original map to Cyberutopia), Primus being Cybertron itself, and Mortilus just being an alternate name for Unicron, we have information for all members of the mythical quintet.
• If my theory is true, then the Grand Architect is not evil, and is just trying to prepare for the upcoming return and rampage of Unicron/Mortilus.